#✧ — STOP SHITTING AROUND ! ( KAIT. )

[losfacedevil]

I Knew You Were Trouble //SFK

a/n ~ Y’all can blame Kait for this one, cause this shit got away from me, that’s all I’m saying! Prompts: “Stop running away from your feelings.” & “Every time I touch you, it feels like a personal challenge to stop again.” WARNINGS: She’s a lil smutty, groping, grinding, nothing too wild. 18+ MINORS DNI Word Count: 1.4K

“This isn’t elementary school y’know, being mean and teasing isn’t the way to get the girl anymore.” Danny mumbled, his eyes trained firmly on Sam’s side profile. 

Sam was staring you down, watching your every move from the way you tipped your head back to sip from your wine flute to the way your fingers danced across your cheek as you swept fly away hairs behind your ear.  The corner of his lips pulled up into a sneer, taking one last drag of his cigarette before stubbing it out and slipping it into the opening of Danny’s empty beer bottle. 

“I don’t know what the hell you’re on about, Daniel. I don’t give two shits about her.” The words slipped past his lips in a near growl, guilty denial bubbling up in his chest. 

“Right, so then why is it when she came to me for a ride that night you jumped right up, claimed I was too saucy and took her home? I heard all about your hand on her knee and how you walked her to her door to make sure she got in safe. You forget she’s my friend too right, Samuel?” 

Sam’s face burned red, the tips of his ears on fire as his eyes snapped to you once more, dancing up your figure as you mingled around the yard with your friends. His hand searched the table aimlessly looking for the pack of cigarettes he knew didn’t actually exist as memories of that night flooded the forefront of his thoughts. 

“Babe, I need a ride home, please? There’s no way I’m dropping forty on an Uber.” You words slightly slurred as you tried to rush the sentence out. Danny had nodded, holding a finger in your direction as he finished up the conversation he partook in. 

Sam had wrapped his arm around your shoulder, leaning his full weight against you as your arm instinctively snaked around his waist. Dipping his face so close to yours you could smell the lingering scent of his cologne mixed with his beer of choice dancing on his breath. 

“Daniel here seems to be a bit too saucy. What say I bring you home? I promise I won’t kidnap you.” A chuckle had rumbled deep in his chest, spilling past his lips as you had nodded your head in agreement; quickly slipping away from your friend group wrapped safely around Sammy.

You could feel his eyes boring a hole in the side of your face, turning on your heel you caught his gaze, shooting him a flirty smile and wave as he snapped his attention back to the beer bottle in front of him. 

“She’s one hell of a story teller.” Sam mumbled, bringing the now warm bottle of beer to his lips and downing the remaining liquid in one quick swig. 

“And you’re one hell of a liar. Stop running away from your feelings and go bag her dude, did you see how she just looked at you?” Sam sighed, reaching up to scrub a hand across his face as he slammed his other down on the picnic table they sat at. Danny chuckled, clapping a hand against Sam’s shoulder as he pushed himself into a standing position. 

Stepping away from the table he shot a fleeting glance over his shoulder at Danny before taking off in your direction. His mind reeled as he tried to figure out how to get you alone and where to take you. A deep breath slipped past his lips as he strode past you, reaching out to drag his fingers across the sliver of skin peeking out the bottom of your shirt, pulling his finger a subtle come hither motion behind him as he walked away. 

Your breath caught in your chest at the feel of his fingers against your bare skin. The heat of his finger tips leaning a nearly burning sensation in their wake against your breeze kissed cool skin. A gasp escaped you as you turned, just barely catching his beckoning motion before excusing yourself from your group and following behind at a safe distance. 

He ducked around the front of the house, standing just beyond the corner of the house in the front yard, keen ears listening for your footsteps against the grass. He gripped your wrist as your hand swung beyond the safety of the side of the house, pulling you with a gentle enough force as to not cause you to trip. 

Your eyes grew wide as his other arm snaked around your waist, pulling your body flush against his as he still held your wrist in a light grasp. Your eyes found his as his slotted his leg between yours, your body resting fully against his thigh. 

“Hi.” Your voice feather light. A chuckle emanating from his chest your only greeting before he leaned forward, his lips were dangerously close to your ear. 

“A little birdie told me someone’s aware of that night, y’know, the night I told you to never let leave your room.” Your eyes fluttered shut, wrapping your free arm around his neck as he pressed a feather light warning kiss to the junction of your jaw. 

“Fucking asshole said he wouldn’t say shit.” You mumbled, silently cursing Danny for opening his big mouth. Sam let go of your wrist, opting to thread his now free hand into the fallen locks of hair at your nape, gentle tugs to it causing your breath to catch in your throat. 

“Sounds like someone should know better than to tell Danny anything about her intimate life, doesn’t it, Princess?” You swallowed thickly, eyes rolling back as he pressed his thigh up against your clothed core, the slight friction enough to drive you crazy. 

“I’ll keep my mouth sealed from now on, promise.” He nodded his head, placing his hands on your hips as he slowly moved you up and down his thigh, just enough to rile you up, your juices pooling in your panties as he leaned forward and nipped at your neck. 

“That’s what I thought. You wouldn’t want little ol’ Daniel to be the reason you lose this would you?” He rasped, voice barely above a whisper as his tongue caressed your ear, pulling the lobe between his teeth and nibbling down on the sensitive flesh. Your breathing hitched, taking everything in you not to let the moan that danced up your throat slip out of your lips. 

“No, no, sir.” You gave a slight shake of your head, careful not to tug your ear from between his teeth. A boisterous laugh escaped him as he pulled back from your ear with a slight pop, the motion of your hips slowing to a stop causing a whine to emanate from your chest at the loss of friction. He tsk’ed, reaching up to caress your cheek as your a pout formed on your lips. 

“Now, now, Princesses don’t wine or pout do they? That’s not how we get what we want is it?” His thumb danced across your lips, gently pressing your lip back into place. You shook your head, letting your hands dance up his torso, coming to rest on the bare skin of his chest peeking out through his open shirt buttons. 

Sam dipped his head forward, capturing your lips in a feverish kiss, one full of sloppy tongues and clashing teeth. A choked back moan threatening to escape him as your hands slid down his chest, coming to rest right above the prominent bulge in his pants. 

You couldn’t help yourself as you attached your lips to his neck, sucking and nipping at the skin until you were satisfied with the purple mark that began to bloom across his pale skin. Slowly working your way up towards his ear, hot open mouthed kisses turning the once dominant man into putty in your hands. 

Sam leaned back against the house, jutting his thigh up against your clothed core once more as your lips found a particularly sensitive spot just below his ear. His eyes rolled back as his breath hitched, threading his fingers through your hair to keep you in place, your mouth working another purple bruise into his skin. Reluctantly you pulled back, trying to steady your breathing.

“Every time I touch you, it feels like a personal challenge to stop again.” The confession rolling off your tongue in a whisper, one you almost hoped he didn’t hear. 

“Then don’t stop, Princess. Have your way with me.”

[imustbenuts]

nuts reading trigun in japanese 6 - kaite's foreshadowing. plant synchronization's downside

remember in my part 3 and 5 i was talking about hierarchy? surprisingly, it continues past chapter 8 with kaite. and wolfwood. triangulating nyoom

(to be honest... ive been doing these read and analysis completely blind in a 1st JP read through. so its possible ill find new nuances, get things wrong which later changes, so my stuff looks like its scattered all over the place. sorry about that.)

i think ill start explaining names and meanings. kaite's name in japanese is kaito. カイト. this can be a homonym with i think 怪盗 (kaitou) in this case, which means phantom thief. for trying to help Neon with stealing loot from the Stand Steamer.

left bubble next to neon: 道案内は的確だったかね！？ I trust your guide has been giving you clear instructions?

^the headaches with manga translations has always been to keep texts short and reasonable for flow and readability, so these simplifications can and sometimes must happen.

but, add dakutens, the " on 2 of those カイト katakanas and suddenly, kaito turns into. ガイド gaido. Guide.

so Kaite, has been playing as a guide to lead vash to his death at the hands of Neon. this page is such a fucking whammy with the wordplay going on. if you just read this in japanese theres a moment of "oh shit, no way, Kaite, vash just told you to stop betraying people! what the hell!"

nightow really likes his worldplay. i really like this page.

kaite redeems himself by later charging into the boiler room and helps turn the valve to stop the sand steamer from running off cliff and killing everyone on board....

hm. a guide.

we sure have a lot of guides here. one who appears in the manga later with a kansai dialect. and another in TriStamp. and he is younger than he appears in that adaptation.

when i spoke about hierarchy and the fact that vash is over 150, i was also kind of hinting that all of current humanity are akin to children in the system of JP hierarchy.

wolfwood is filling in the shoes of kaito here. both within trimax and in tristamp. incredible.

theres actually more going on with wolfwood and certain design/changes choices i wanna talk about but ill save it for another day.

Plant Synchronization downside.

....so theres a bad downside to vash synchronizing with the plant. which also answers what the fuck was going on in tristamp when that version of him hits the ground

nightow mentions this in an interview, link here posted and transcribed by xoxo-otome (thank you!) that he likes action flicks and has incorporated a lot of action into his work. and its true. there is so much action in the form of sound effects.

reading through the entire manga and paying attention to the sfx peppered around offers a lot more context to whats happening in half of the panels that seemingly doesnt make sense

like this one where the top panel has "DADADADADA" sfx. so they're stomping down the corridor with their guns crossed and facing each other. the "GO OH" in the bottom panel emphasizes the sudden burst into open air. unfortunately, anyone who values their life and sanity in this economy will not want to translate trigun's sfxs 100%.

i should have paid more attention when reading trigun in english. but i didn't so here i am. in the trigunbookclub tag now doing this.

why is it important? here. this. below. when vash does his plant thing with his sister:

see those heart panels? i tried searching real quick but nobody seems to have pointed this out. i havent seen this in EN fanfics. maybe i missed it. maybe im stupid:

thats Dokun, the sound effect of a heart thumping. as vash synchronizes, the heart panels with the same sound effect appear, but they gradually split apart further with ellipses "..." to signify his heart beat slowing down. and down. and down....

Dokun, do kun, do... kun....

then the wings comes out. and the panel below it:

sfx: PIIIIIIIIIII

breathes. a FLAT LINE.

aaaaaaAA?!

何かなんだかわかりません I'm not sure what's going on. とにかくプラントの動きは一切止まっています But the Plant's movement has completely stopped. 同時に男にも呼吸　心音ともに停止してます It's the same with that man. His breathing and heartbeat sounds like it's stopped with the plant too.

AAAAA?!!?!

i.... um. um.,, ANYWAY-

AAAAAAAAAAAA?! HUH?! HUH??? HUH?!

is THIS why he has a metal grate over his heart? something happened and he an an operation on his heart???? by some engineer maybe? what? huh? am i reading this wrong? what? wait, hello? HEY!!!

what the fuck. okAY--?!

and then he just. pretends like nothing's happened. doesnt tell kaito anything. and he leaves the Sand Steamer.

and im going to have to sleep bc its 5 am now and pretend like i didnt just realize something this big right in front of my eyes during the first read.

[wolfawaycamp]

Maybe some abi/nick/jacob(which I am now calling furblygstos) getting together post-game? 👉👈

🌦️ somehow I was captivated by the most unlikely pairing (abijake) in the trio. here it is! Also it kind of got out of control. it's a 1.3k monster of a ficlet and Nick’s barely here

There were messages in Jacob’s phone, from the one and only Abigail Blyg.

The idea was so, so daunting just in itself. What could Abi have to say to him? Kaitlyn and Nick were the only ones who had any words left for him, after he came clean, and it was still weird with Nick. Though, Kait had assured him that Nick was just ‘like that’ now, which he really didn't know what to say to, and he had no clue how to broach the subject with Nick himself, so he never did.

It took him a week to open them because it was just so easy to put it off.

ABIGAIL: i forgive you

i’m sorry that was out of nowhere. i know we weren't the closest at camp but

i don't know. sorry

do you want to meet?

That was… weirdly reassuring, but also weirdly threatening.

JACOB: Hey ‼️💯 Sorry for late reply haha football practice is crazy 🔥🏈😩

That was believable… right?

JACOB: Let's do it‼️‼️‼️ Are u still in NY area⁉️

That was how Jacob ended up trying boba for the first time. Abi had ordered a purple drink, matching the new purple dye in her hair (complimenting it was the first thing Jacob had said to her, even before ‘hello’, because it really did suit her) and advised Jacob to get the same, when she saw him floundering over his order.

He watched her get the straw in in one precise shot, and then proceeded to get his drink all over the table and rip the lid when he tried. She laughed, tried to stop herself when she realised Jacob could hear, and then laughed tentatively louder when she saw him laughing too.

Abi tapped her short, painted nails against her drink and finally came to why she wanted to meet, “I just— I feel so bad for you. I feel so guilty for so many things that happened and we all did things but you're the one who's getting all the heat.”

Crumpling up the wet napkins into a ball, Jacob quickly asked, “Wait— guilty for what? You didn't do anything wrong?”

Abi took a deep drink from her straw. “I looked Nick in the eyes and shot him. He lived, but I didn't know he was going to. All you did was try to get one more night at camp. Half of us wanted that. Your intentions were a lot purer than mine.”

Jacob’s internal response to that was a jumbled mess of emotions. He'd heard the story, in full detail, from Kaitlyn. Even to him that was a clear case of self-defence. He had come to terms with, kind of, his own share of guilt, because even if he didn't mean it like that, it was still a whole ordeal. “Okay, no. A: my intentions were not pure, they were ‘ignore Emma breaking up with me’. 2: literally self-defence, dude. Sorry, I shouldn't call girls ‘dude’. Anyways, it was definitely self-defence. Kaitlyn told me everything, about how the—” his eyes darted around— “thing was making Nick go psycho.”

Jacob realised that he was thinking about Nick a little too hard while saying that, and ended up copying the ‘A’ and ‘2’ thing Nick had said to him that night.

Abi lightly chewed on the plastic of her straw. Jacob watched it catch on her lower lip. “Thank you. I guess if Nick’s friend tells me it's okay, then that's the second best source.”

“Dude— sorry, uh, girl— Nick doesn't even remember. No harm, no foul. He holds literally nothing against you.”

Abi gave him a wide-eyed look. “He told you that?”

Shit, was he supposed to tell her that? “Um, yeah.”

“Huh,” Abi said, and Jacob took a sip of his drink in the ensuing pause. It was really sweet but pretty good. “You're over Emma then?” she asked, and Jacob choked, and what the fuck, he had forgotten there were those balls in the drink.

Abi yelped. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry,” she said, throwing more napkins at him, “I just— you mentioned the Emma thing so casually and I— sorry.”

Jacob cleaned himself up again, cringing a little at today’s clumsy streak, “Um, you're fine. Yeah. It's been nearly a year now. Plus, she really drilled it into me after.”

She snorted. “I heard.”

“Hey!” he exclaimed with no real anger.

Conversation came strangely easy after that. It was nice. He wondered why he hadn't talked to Abi more at camp.

Long after they finished drinking, Jacob felt a pang of hunger.

“Hey, do you want to get something to eat?”

Abi looked at him with an indiscernible expression for a reason Jacob didn't understand, and then just said, “Okay.”

Jacob got a chicken burger, and Abi got some vegan chicken fingers. Jacob laughed at how much ranch Abi used and she smiled at him picking the onion out of his burger. She told him about her art, when he asked, and then she asked him about his football practice. He had to hold himself back from admitting that it hadn't been that crazy, and he had just been making excuses.

In the end, Jacob was left holding a receipt with a drawing of him on it, dizzied by the realisation that his time spent with Abi had felt like the best date he'd ever had, when it wasn't even supposed to be one.

It was okay to ask his ex-girlfriend’s friend on a date, right? She had said they were only a summer fling, after all. Was it okay to ask his friend's ex-situationship on a date, too? It was coming up on a year since, and Nick avoided the topic like the plague, so it was probably fine. He hoped it was, because he was going to do it.

On their fifth date, a quiet night in watching a movie, Abi brought up Nick. It all came spilling out of Jacob all at once.

“I know exactly what you mean, Abs. Whenever I talk to him, hang out with him, whatever, it's just so weird. I’ve never had a guy friendship like this before— um, wait, other than Tyler in sixth grade— it just feels like we're staring at each other the whole time. I just don't get it.”

Abi looked fascinated. “I really don't think we're on the same lines here but— Go on?”

“About what?”

“Nick— Tyler?”

“You're a girl, but it's like when you and your bro have that close friendship that just feels weird, right? Like you get kinda nervous and sick when you hang out with him. Do girls ever get that too, like with other girls?”

Abi had that wide-eyed look again. “Some girls do. I have— but Jake, that's because I’m bisexual.”

Oh, shit. “Oh, shit. Sorry, uh,” Jacob stammered out, needing time to think about this. “What was your thing about him?”

A bad deflection, but Abi took it in stride, “Oh. Uh, I kinda still like him— not, um, that I'd ever do anything! I know we aren't like, together-together but I'm not— I’m not a cheater. Um, I kinda like him but my feelings are so weird. That night weirdly made me, um, like him more but also made me feel sick over him. I’ve worked through my feelings with therapy, we all did after that court mandate thing, but some things just stay stuck together. Anyways, Nick is weird and I’m weird, um, sorry for rambling.”

“Don't say sorry—”

“Sorry,” Abi cut in, and Jacob couldn't help but smile.

“Don't say sorry,” he repeated, and took Abi’s hand, “I get it. Turns out we both have weird Nick feelings.”

Jacob was proud of himself for his emotional maturity, as his therapist called it. He didn't even get jealous over the Nick thing!

“Don't tell Nick?” Abi murmured.

“Only if it goes both ways,” Jacob joked, serious in sentiment. Abi nodded and shifted closer to him on the couch.

They changed their mind in a few months.

Then, Nick was waiting for them, all perfect curls and doe-eyed, outside the same boba shop. Abi and Jake approached him as a unit, and hoped they wouldn't scare him off.

[stvharrngton]

hi kyrie, congrats on 1k!! i hope i'm not too late to send something in, but may i please request 💌: steve + 91 (kisses shared under an umbrella) from list 2? thank you so much <333

kait!! not too late but i’m sorry i took forever to get this posted 😭 thank you for requesting, i hope you enjoy! <3 @katsu28

pairing: steve harrington x gn!reader (no pronouns used)

word count: 1k

warnings: none, fluffy boyfriend steeb

prompt: kisses shared under an umbrella

taglist: @sweetiestevie @dukesmebby @sw34terw34ther @sweetbabygirlsworld

1k celebration

The evening spring air was hot and sticky against your skin, your bare arms brushing against Steve’s with every step that you walked, your denim shorts high on your waist.

You two were a picture. Your hair thrown up into a bun that was definitely lopsided on your head, a pair of odd socks donning your feet. Steve with his signature Ray-Bans perched on the bridge of his nose even though the sun had moved behind the clouds hours ago.

He’d insisted that you’d been cooped up in your apartment for too long, either of you only ever leaving the comfort of your home for work. “Fresh air will be good for us.” He’d said.

You’d rolled your eyes at him, even though he was right, Steve was always right, but a pout fell to your lips when you re-emerged to see his car keys were still slung on the kitchen counter.

Apparently your idea of fresh air was different to his. You wanted to go for a drive, feel the wind blistering through your hair as the radio played throughout the trusty BMW. Steve’s hand resting on your thigh as he navigated the winding roads beyond Hawkins.

“We’re going for a walk, come on, baby,” he’d said with a chuckle, lacing his fingers between yours to pull you into him closer, “stop pouting.” Steve spoke against your lips with a gentle kiss.

You didn’t have an end destination, you just headed wherever your footsteps took you. Hand in hand and Steve was beaming from ear to ear. Something about you, about being with you, made him giddy. The way your hand felt in his, how warm your skin felt, the way your cheeks turned rosy from the warm air.

All of it just felt perfect. Like home.

Steve would always cherish moments like these, he was sure you did too. Between all the doom and gloom and interdimensional monsters lurking in Hawkins you still had each other. And Hell, that was enough. It would always be enough.

As he got lost in his thoughts in a sea of you, he almost didn’t realise you’d stopped walking. Brows pinched together with that damn pout on your lips again, fingers tugging on his own.

“Was that thunder?” You gawped, voice a little shaky as the clouds darkened quickly.

“What? No, come on, you’re hearing things.” Steve teased, chuckling to himself as he tried to get you walking again, arm slung around your shoulders to get you moving.

The sky rumbled again, a little louder this time as it rang throughout Steve’s ears. His grin downturning into a thin line as he turned to look at you.

“Shit.” He mumbled.

“So you don’t think I’m crazy now, hotshot?” You jibed with a jab to the boy’s chest.

Both your eyes brimmed wide with panic as the sprinkling of rain began to fall from the clouds, only doomed to fall harder as the seconds passed by. You were already hot and sticky, you could do without adding soggy to that list.

Steve wrapped his fingers around your wrist as he dragged you into the convenience store on the other side of the road. You narrowly missed the downpour by a beat, your sneakers squeaking against the tiled floor of the store.

“Let’s just wait it out in here for a minute.” Steve said quietly, fingers carding through his hair as he ushered you through with a hand at the small of your back.

You gnawed on your bottom lip as you watched the rain thrash against the large windows, brows knitting together as you spoke, “I don’t think it’s stopping anytime soon, Stevie.”

Steve pulled you into his side with his arm around your shoulders, his lips pressed to your temple as he nosed at your hairline. He hummed softly at your thought until his eyes fell on the rack of umbrellas in the corner of the aisle.

“I have an idea,” he said with a grin, “umbrella?”

He picked up one from the rack, a simple black thing with pink hearts splattered all over. You nodded with a giggle as you followed him to the cash register, hand tucked into the back pocket of his Levi’s.

“You’re not getting one for you, Stevie?” you asked as you leaned into the boy’s side.

“We can share, it’ll be romantic.” Steve hushed you with a wiggle of his eyebrows, fishing out his wallet to pay for your new umbrella.

“Steve,” you said with a giggle, “you’re like two feet taller than me.”

Okay, you were exaggerating just a little but Steve brushed you off either way. Insisting that he ‘could keep you dry, baby’, a statement he said in that voice that was usually reserved for the bedroom.

Steve Harrington was an idiot, but he was your idiot.

You rolled your eyes at your boyfriend as he ushered you back out to the front of the store. The rain still thrashing the ground in an assault, you huddled shoulder to shoulder underneath the small ledge out front.

You snatched the umbrella from Steve’s hands as you felt the rain splatter at your feet, cold droplets sprinkling against your shins. You held the umbrella over you both as Steve peered down at you with a dopey grin on his face.

“‘M sorry I brought you out in the rain, sweetheart.” He spoke softly, you could barely hear him over the rain, his hand reaching to cup your cheek.

“S’fine, but I gotta ask,” you began, your free hand pressed against Steve’s firm chest, “where’s the romance you promised, loverboy?”

Steve chuckled lightly, pulling you into him and out from under the ledge with a grip to your waist. Both of his hands found your face, thumbs brushing over the apple of your cheeks as he pressed his lips to yours.

The kiss was sticky sweet, dripping with saccharine. Steve’s plush lips soft against your own, as you melted into him, his kiss, his touch. You felt him smile against your lips as he pulled away, your mouth chasing his as he came to rest his forehead on yours.

“Don’t get greedy now, pretty girl, there’s more where that came from at home.”

Umbrella and rain be damned, you were dragging Steve back to the comfort of your home as fast as your feet would carry you.

[inherstars]

Gears of War | Rise and Fall (3 of 3)

Continued from here.

He’d never been to her flat before.  He and Del had gotten close a few times, they’d lingered outside over beers, played cards and shot the shit in the wooden chairs scattered in the courtyard out front, but go inside?  No, not yet.

Kait never had the need to offer, and J.D. never had the nerve to ask.  All the rest of the time Reyna was conspicuously nearby, keeping a mother-hen eye on them.

I see you, boy.

He actually double checked the immediate area before following her inside, as if they might get caught out.

“Are you sure this is OK?”

Kait laughed.  “Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Your Mom scares me.”

“Oh wow, I’m going to have to tell her that.  She’ll be thrilled.  Lucky for you, I don’t have to ask her for permission anymore.”

Like energy, space too was at a premium.  Although Kait enjoyed her own private flat, it was about as minimal in appointments as it could get: one single main room with a blanket-draped futon and packing-crate coffee table, a hotplate and sink in lieu of a proper kitchen, and an overstuffed mattress behind a curtain of batiked wall scarves that served as a bedroom.  She was lucky enough to live adjacent to the pubic showers, never more than a convenient trip outside and across the courtyard.

J.D. stood awkwardly as she ghosted around the room, fingering on a few lamps to half-light, switching on a string of bulbs that criss-crossed the low ceiling.  The only thing that saved him from saying something awkward was the threat of another sneeze, and with an unhappy whine he turned his back on the room, hiding his face against the inside of his arm.

Kait stood and stared as his body clenched like a spastic fist -- six, seven, then eight times, until he picked his head up with a desperate, “God damn it, STOP.”

Her composure crumbled into helpless, sniggering laughter.  She hid it badly behind the cup of her hands.

“Not funny,” J.D. protested, wristing his eyes and groping for the handkerchief.

“I mean it… it’s kind of funny.”

“Fuck me,” he growled, bowing his head to blow his nose.

“Come on.”  She gestured at him to follow, holding aside one of the scarves curtaining the bed.  He looked at her over the edge of the handkerchief, sniffing and folding it away.

“In there?”

“Yeah.  Oh--well, wait. Better take your clothes off first.”

His head picked up.  “Wait, for real?”

“Gotta do my little dance around you, don’t I?  Oh--did you think I was the one getting naked for that?”

“Oh,” he deflated. “You’re being funny at the expense of the sick guy.  I see how it is.”

“Seriously, though,” Kait laughed, then snapped at him and pointed. “Take everything off from the waist up.”

Compliant -- and maybe a little bit intimidated -- J.D. shrugged out of his denim coat, tugging and pulling the ribbed shirt beneath and wrestling it over his head.  All of it? Like everything everything?  Okay.  He kicked his boots to the mud tray by the door, brushing his palms over the bare skin of his arms as his skin rose with gooseflesh.

Kait was a silhouette behind the bohemian veil of scarves when he finally, somewhat timidly, joined her, looking all around as he went.  She’d cast off her bolero and belt, dressed down to a gray tanktop and fatigues that rode low on her hips.  She looked over at him as she palmed a small indigo glass vial in one hand.  The bed was turned down invitingly to mismatched, mis-patterned sheets.

He was right back to wanting to kiss her.

They stared at each other, her expectantly and he like a soldier nervously awaiting his physical exam, feeling strangely naked for a man who was technically still half-dressed.

“Well?” She smiled, crooked, and nodded to the bed.  “Get in.”

“A… are you gonna, uh…”

“Ravage you?  Lustily take advantage of you in your weakened state?  Rip open my bodice while moaning helplessly, Oh, J.D., you’re so irresistible--”

Nope. There went the kissing urge.  The shameless, pantomiming caress of her own arms just killed it.

“Okay,” he said wryly.

“How can you be right about so many things all the time?”

“OKAY.  Never mind.  I’ll do anything you want, just… stop talking.”

Pointedly ignoring her giggling, he heaped onto her bed, rolling flat onto his back.  Kait was all smiles as she climbed over him, and though he thought for a split second she might mount him like a bronco, she just summited him to sit on his other side.

But he was still nervous.  Self-conscious.  As she folded her legs and unscrewed the cap of the jar, he laced his hands together at his chest. Then put them back down at his sides.  Then folded them.  Kait shook with laughter.

“Stop it.”

“I’m not… what am I doing?”  He put his arms back down for a second time. “I’m not doing anything.”

“You're overthinking.  Relax."

"Is this the part where I close my eyes and breathe again?"

“Not yet."

With two fingers she carved out a frosting-like dollop of translucent cream, the camphor smell of it immediately hitting him.  His nostrils flared as he inhaled, grunting in his throat, and Kait spread it slowly, liberally across his bare chest, massaging it into his skin until only the scent of it remained.  Wherever she touched him, his skin blossomed with radiating, chemical warmth.

“Okay,” she said more softly.  “Now you can.”

He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, the pressure that had been slowly rebuilding in his head releasing again, cool air filling every recess of his head and lungs.  His head pressed back into the pillow, breath coming out in an unintentional moan.

Kait watched the muscle-by-muscle release of tension, the weight of his shoulders dropping as his whole body grew heavier on the mattress.  She recapped the jar and wiped her palms clean on the hips of her fatigues, then slipped down more deeply beside him.

J.D.’s eyes reopened, suddenly sleepy with weight.  He watched, as if from far away, as she gathered him closer to her, pliant and comfortably limp.  He turned instinctively into her, then resisted.  She corrected him with an arm around his shoulder.

“No.  Go ahead.  It’s alright.”

He hesitated just a moment, then rolled more deeply against her.  Kait eased and shifted and drew him to her with a cradling embrace, finding a place for his head against the hollow of her shoulder, a place for the heavy drape of his arm around her ribs.  He was timid at first, self-conscious, but the brush of her fingers through his hair chased it from him.  He made a happy noise, eyes heavy.

“This is okay?” She asked.

J.D. was afraid that if he said anything, it would be stupid.  Or sarcastic.  Or unnecessary.  He just wanted to enjoy it.  He didn’t even want to sleep, though it felt irresistible.  What he really wanted was to write this all to memory… to make it last for as many future iterations of recall as he was allowed.  He settled for a nod.

"Good,” Kait said, and brushed smooth his hair.  “Sleep.  I've got you."

[watchyoubloom]

16 with Sam pleaaassseee 👉🏻👈🏻

16. all over face

EEEEEEE hi kait hi! Thank you for this 🥺 I love this prompt and was hoping someone would send it to me! (The whole snippet is for you obv but the ending is ESPECIALLY you coded)

send me prompts and i’ll write you a little snippet!

╭── ⋅ ⋅ ── ✩ ── ⋅ ⋅ ──╮

“Sam,” you manage through a gasping wheeze, barely able to catch your breath from how hard you’ve been laughing. “Sam, you have to stop—“

“Can’t,” Sam answers you simply, his fingers digging into your sides again as he nuzzles against the side of your neck. His beard scratches against your skin lightly, tickling you, and no matter how hard you try to push his face away from you, you’re laughing too hard to really accomplish anything. “Have to do this forever, sorry.”

He’s got you pinned between the kitchen counter and his own body, caging you in, and had lured you in under the pretense of what you thought would be some sweet kisses. How wrong you had been- not long after you’d reached up to wrap your arms around his shoulders, pulling him in, he’d started to poke at you, tickling your sides and your hips first before breaking out the big guns and burying his face in the crook of your neck.

“Noooo, not forever,” you say through your laughter, still pushing futilely at his forehead, his chest, his shoulder. “Think of- ah, stop- ha- think of the beard burn, baby.”

That’s the thing that finally does it, and Sam lifts his head from your neck and immediately starts apologizing. He lifts your hair off of your shoulder to assess the damage, wincing when he sees that your skin is indeed already kind of irritated. “Shit, honey, I got carried away-“

“Sam, it’s fine-“

“I think we have some aloe? Let me go get-“

“Sam, it doesn’t even hurt, I was just saying that if you did that for forever, I’d have perma-beard burn.”

He takes your face in his hands, then, leaning in to pepper kisses over your face, your nose, your forehead. “Still sorry,” he says, and leans back in to drop more kisses all over your face. Your lips even catch a few of them this time, and he lingers as he presses a kiss to your mouth. “Want me to shave it? I’ll get rid of it-“

“Don’t you dare,” you say immediately, cutting him off, and he laughs, knowing of your affinity for - and attachment to- his facial hair. “I’ll risk the beard burn.”

╰── ⋅ ⋅ ── ✩ ── ⋅ ⋅ ──╯

[littleladymab]

#87 for Kalluzeb (I miss them)

ok................................ ok.

87 - "My Immortal" by Halocene

Bro I've been trying to think of a good answer for this and I think the best answer is just: This would just be the Beauty and the Beast AU that we've talked about. That's the only thing I can think of.

So for the audiences at home:

Kalluzeb Beauty and the Beast AU is something Kaite and I came up with over a year ago (I checked our chat history, it was March 2022). Kallus is the Beast in this scenario because he's like, space nazi at the top and has to unlearn a lot of shit and learn how to let himself be a good person and be loved, etc etc and also we're not here for people who like to make the non-humans in SW into "feral" or "beasts" especially when compared to their human counterparts because enough of y'all do that, stop it.

I don't think I ever decided if it would be like, in a fantasy setting with a castle and all, or if it was still Star Wars setting and so like, on an imperial star destroyer or at the academy or whatever. But in lieu of talking furniture, Kallus instead has: kids. Sabine and Ketsu, Wedge, Jai, and Zare, and sure Ezra can be there too. And these kids are versions of themselves having been left under the empire's thumb, however it looks here. This is a Sabine that never got out after creating the duchess. This is an Ezra who has always been alone and enlisted just because he had no other option. And Kallus like "okay I might be a space nazi but I'm not TOTALLY heartless" and does help make these kids' lives a little better, but he's still got that knowledge of what he did on Lasan rattling around in the back of his brain.

(Canon timelines? don't know her.)

We come up with some theories about what if Kallus was cursed after Lasan or Onderon and then it was back to "is this magic magic? is this a metaphorical curse? what is happening?

Anyway, we never did figure out how to fit Zeb.... into this actual Kalluzeb plot.

[tc-doherty]

9, 11, 19 and 20 for the asks! :D

Favourite OC?

Ithea, it's no contest! She's just been part of my life for so long. After her I really feel like Dante needs serious consideration because he was a side character from an RP in middle school who I continued thinking about and draw pictures of until I decided to put him in a novel like. last year. So obviously I really like him! I also love Gheist a lot~

Sum up one or more of your wips!

Well summaries of my work are very easy to access however I feel like when it comes to Silverwood I usually just do the sort of overall vibe, but I don't know that I've necessarily gotten into the core conflicts of each generation.

1st generation the conflict is between Ithea and her father on one hand and Ithea and her brother on the other hand. Her father is trying to undermine their race for various reasons and she sees it while others don't because she wasn't raised in that culture. She wants to put a stop to him and his bullshit but unfortunately only manages to turn almost everyone against her so things proceed even faster after she dies. The conflict with her brother is personal and if it weren't for his inability to let go of the past, she might have been able to get more done on the actual conflict that she's worried about but sometimes things don't go the way you want them to.

Generation 2 also has two things going on, there's Charlie who gets involved with a resistance group and ends up funding a failed coup d'état, and all the politics going on over there. There is also Cyan, Gavin, and Kaite who are inventing the concept of organized crime. As for the other siblings there is some information about what they're doing but it's not as important to this particular section of history.

Generation 3 is sort of a domestic arc where the siblings end up coming back together and deal with a bunch of emotional baggage, the world is at this point at least relatively peaceful so there's not so much political nonsense going on it really is just focused on the actual relationships of the Silverwood kids as adults and also their children.

In generation 4 everything goes to shit again and one of Ro's grandchildren leads a revolution and takes over the government of 2 separate countries before deciding that one of them is too troublesome and stays with the other one, prompting all kinds of chaos. If there ever is a generation 5 it will probably revolve around the inheritance rights of the throne that Rona abandoned.

What are some things that inspired your stories? Real events? Maybe a dream?

I am often inspired by dreams actually! I tend to have very plot heavy dreams that I remember well so I've used those on multiple occasions. Celestials, Magic Black as Knight, and Northbound are still active stories that are wholly or partially based on dreams.

Otherwise I get a lot of inspiration from the "wow I would've written a relationship like that so much better" LOL

What story are you the proudest of? Why?

The Ghost! It really is exactly the kind of book that I wanted to be producing when I decided to be a writer, I love the characters and the world building and the story, I think it's held up really well considering how long ago I wrote it, and it just honestly means a lot to me. It's really one that I wrote not just because I had the idea but out of sheer love for the idea and the characters and that love has not diminished ^__^

I'm playing this ask game!

[marshmallowprotection]

Hi Kait.

It’s been a little while. I hope you’re doing well. <3

I’m always rooting for your success and happiness lol.

I feel bad and sheepish because I never wanna be that person who only ever pops by to like,,, dump a vent when I’m struggling.

I wish I had more fun or creative stuff I could share with you more often.

I think about trying to make you a gift of some sort a lot but I always chicken out. 😔

But tbh I think the reason I feel inclined to come here when I’m feeling bad is because when I am struggling,, that’s when I turn to thoughts of Saeyoung as a source of comfort. And your blog is the best outlet I’ve found to be able to express those feelings haha.

At any rate…

I wonder if you can relate to this experience…?

When I was really sick, my mental health issues actually kinda felt better…?

It’s not like they actually went away or anything.

It’s just that,,, I literally didn’t have the mental capacity to fixate on those things like I normally would. I was deadass too exhausted to indulge my anxious or depressed thoughts and let myself spiral lmao

But now that I’m slowly staring to feel better physically, those old patterns and thoughts and feelings have been creeping back in little by little too :))

(Super unfair if you ask me 🙄 bc I *am* still sick and in pain. Just slightly less so. And now I gotta deal with the mental illness on top of it all? Now my bones hurt AND my tummy hurts AND my silly little pathetic heart hurts. Homophobia at its finest, truly.)

And like… I’m trying really hard to claw my way out of this cute little pit of self-loathing I’ve found myself in.

Especially since I know now, better than ever, that it’s completely pointless…

The world’s gonna keep turning whether I hate myself or not. It’s just a matter of whether or not I’m choosing to make myself miserable in the process.

But,,, you know. It’s never that simple.

And. It’s kinda the “trying hard” that’s been making it hurt tbh.

I can’t stop thinking about the ~injustice~ of how hard Ive tried my whole life to build a future for myself where I could finally feel ~stable and happy and loved~ like I’ve been craving my whole life or whatever. But the universe just keeps saying Sike! Over and over :’)

I had to work so hard just to fuckin survive and keep myself alive my whole childhood.

I never thought I’d be able to go to college,, I didn’t even think it was on the table for me.

But I got lucky and got support and encouragement from my friends,, and somehow I managed to make it. And it meant so much to me. I felt so overjoyed and lucky to be able to be in a place where I didn’t have to worry about my safety all the time, or where I was going to sleep or get my next meal. And better yet,, somewhere where I could pursue my dreams and passions and get a little closer every day to a future I never thought I’d have. :’D

Buuuut then Covid hit, my mental health tanked, and I stopped being able to afford my tuition. And even though I was doing everything I could and DESPERATELY trying to figure things out,, it wasn’t enough. Bc nobody at the school would fuckin help me. And it was so frustrating and upsetting to know that, no matter how good of a student I was (I was a 4.0 student in STEM smh)

And no matter how genuine and passionate I was,,,

It didn’t make a difference. Because all they cared about was my money.

Like. Not to be dramatic. But that shit legit shattered my heart and crushed my soul. :’)

Even so! I told myself,,, hey. It’s okay. You can turn this around. You just have to work harder! Push yourself even further! You’re good at that. You’ve done it before. You just need to get a job and save up so you can go back.

So I got my silly lil minimum wage pet store job.

And goddammit, I was great at that too.

I was the best damn employee at my store, if not the whole company 🙄 bc I’m SMART AND PASSIONATE ABOUT LEARNING AND HELPING ANIMALS AND CREATING BETTER LIVES FOR THEM. UGH. 😤

Worked my tits off for a year and a half. Saved up as much as I could. Got over halfway to my goal that would allow me to finally move away from my home state that I’ve always hated. Go back to school. And really and truly get a shiny new ~fresh start~

But then the universe was like, HA bitch you thought!

You actually worked *too* hard this time and now your body is broken.

So… all that money you just saved up…?

POOF! That’s all going to your medical bills now.

Or at least. A tiny fraction of your medical bills :)

And now you can’t keep working to pay those bills off, or save up more money to go back to school. Because you’re too sick!

So like… good luck I guess??

And now I’m here having to deal with the fact that my friends who started school at the same time as me are graduating this semester.

And I’m just. Spending all my days alone in my room helpless and lonely and rotting :)))

It just really stinks that even though I’ve been trying so hard my whole life and putting SO MUCH of myself into literally everything I do,,, it’s never seemed to pay off.

In fact it feels like if anything, all it’s done is come back to bite me in the ass and make the failure hurt worse in the end.

🙄🙄 big “please please please let me get what I want by the smiths” moment

But anyways *ahem*

Like I said,,,,,

Whenever I get to feeling like this. I definitely always end up thinking about and coming back to Saeyoung.

Because… different life situations, obviously.

I’m glad at least I haven’t had to check “lost twin” or “being a secret agent” off my trauma bingo card yet.

But then again. I never thought I’d check off medical trauma either and look how that turned out, so who knows what the future has in store for me? 💀

At any rate,,, I know he’d be able to empathize, and understand those feelings.

More so than anyone I’ve ever met in real life, probably.

That’s definitely a huge part of why he came to mean so much to me in the first place. And why he’s the character I come back to time and time again when things start feeling really unfair.

And,, knowing just how and why he’d be able to understand and relate to those feelings is a big part of why I love him so much…

I just get so overwhelmed any time I get caught up thinking about that man’s endless capacity for goodness and love. Even through all the shit he’s been through. And how,, no matter how hurt he was, how hopeless he felt, or how much he *wanted* to give up. He never ever could. Because that’s just who he is,, if there’s even the slimmest margin of a chance that he could do something to make the world better for his loved ones, he’d drag himself there to the point of physically falling apart and not even think twice about it.

And like,,, yeah,,, it’s an issue in its own right and breaks my heart to think of how far he’d go for others while having so little regard for himself.

But also,,,,, it’s so admirable 😭 I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Saeyoung Choi is made of love.

And like,,, more than just Ye Olde “self-destruction in the name of helping his loved ones” thing,, I also get so worked up just thinkin about him being his silly dorky self,,

And again just… through everything,, even when he tried to convince himself that it was a front and he wasn’t actually like that,,, he never stopped being bright and curious and passionate,,, because that IS who he is,,, he’s a NERD and he genuinely loves learning and trying new things and having fun,,, and spreading that joy to the people around him. 🥹❤️

It just makes me wanna fuckin SMOTHER him with all of the affection and appreciation I could ever possibly muster up. And tell him over and over and over again how incredible and kind and brave and strong and special he is, and how much I love and adore him, and how lucky and proud I feel to even exist in the same universe as someone so earnestly and relentlessly Good. 🥺🥺

I would simply like to love him to death dhdjdjd

And like. I guess it’s cathartic to me to imagine being able to do that and say those things to him.

And to really just,,, bask in those overwhelming feelings of affection.

Bc I guess that’s how I wish someone would see and feel about me 😅 and that I could have someone in my life who would see how hard I try,, and be proud of me, and make me feel like I have value outside of my achievements in life (or,,, lack thereof). And like,,,, love me for all the times I kept going even when it hurt. That would be cool,,,,

Me out here since 2016 trying to fix myself by fixing Saeyoung 💀💀

Literally even now I feel better than I did when I started typing this message having thought about him and how much I love him fjfjfjf

Kuz,,, there’s the catharsis in thinking about being able to say those things that i wish I could hear myself to someone else.

But then there’s the added layer of self-indulgent catharsis of being able to be like,,,

I mean, hey, Saeyoung probably *would* see you in a similar light,,, if anyone would be able to understand and appreciate those things in me, it would be him. :’D

We are,,, the pointing Spider-Man meme,,, but make it gay dhdhdj

And that shit is,,, overwhelming to think about.

Ahh the euphoria of loving Saeyoung Choi shdhjd

And,, imagining a world where he loves me back just as much,,,

That’s nice,,, :’D

Anyways. I don’t know where I intended on going with this. I feel like I’m just awkwardly talking in circles and not making sense.

And I didn’t mean to get as vent-y as I did there.

I guess I just was all tangled up in my thoughts about all this shit and wanted to try and articulate that side of why Saeyoung means so much to me.

And to have an excuse to gush about my precious little meow meow. 🤡

As usual,,, if you’ve actually taken the time to read through this mess. Thank you haha.

Wishing you the best, always. ❤️❤️❤️

Don't worry, I get where you're coming from.

I had the same experience, similar, anyway. I thought college was the way out and went like I was "supposed" to. I suffered for a long time as a child in an abusive, impoverished environment, and there was no way out but a single door that everyone sold me. Well, as soon as the door closed on high school, my body started to give up. I dealt with a single diagnosis at first, and then, by the next time Spring Break was around, I had two more issues that would nearly cause me to lose my life.

Being on death's door after you've fought so hard to escape is a sick joke, and it's hard to put that grief into words. I'm sure you know what I mean, though. You think you're getting out and then it feels like God is laughing in your face. As if to say, "You thought you were allowed to be happy and free? Ha! Sike!" Hitting rock bottom with those types of emotions is not fun in the slightest. I still feel grief in that way when a bad day comes along. Even if you're working through your feelings, a bad flare will make you struggle.

Being Disabled and Chronically Ill means you're in a perpetual loop of "I'm okay with this" > "I hate this" > "This is okay sometimes" > "Why is it that I'm being punished" > "I can't take it anymore" > "This is... okay. I am okay".

You cycle through acceptance, anger, grief, begging, and everything that comes with loss. We don't have to be okay with our struggles, you know? It's not something people can understand unless it's their experience. Sure, if someone close to you is that sick, you might be able to understand, but not all of it. It's something that can't be put into words. Sometimes, the hardest part is trying to get someone to understand that you won't get better. You will only get worse. It's not like a broken arm.

I want you to know that I've been there. Stuck in a bedroom for years and it hurt. I lost out on experiences because I didn't have support in the way I needed. I had to become my own doctor and advocate the second I realized the healthcare system latched onto my anxiety to blame for all my problems. I haven't had health care in years because America is a piece of shit, but I don't think anyone should be forced to become more intelligent than their doctor to save their life. Then, you have to act like you know nothing because if you know too much, they think you doom scroll health conditions online.

But, that's another thing. You get used to it. You shrug. Your pain is a 7 to an average person but to you, it's a 2. You get used to it. You just learn how to adapt. You forget what not being in pain feels like. I can't remember what it felt like to not have something hurt!

Mental health and physical health are other things. When you've got to deal with both of them, it's weird. You might have a bad day with a flare but your mental health is just fine, vice versa, or the opposite of that. If you're in too much physical pain to think, you're not going to think about your depression. You just sleep. God, one thing that did happen to me was that my compulsive hand-washing started to be something I did less because I physically couldn't get out of bed at one point and I just said, "Fuck it. I can't do it. It's fine."

Still have that issue but it's not what it was. It's hard to explain how these issues clash with each other.

Haha. Anyway, I get it. I know what you mean about Saeyoung 'cause I feel the same way about Saeran. I met the RFA in 2016. I was on the door of death, not knowing what was coming next, and they saved a life that day. I don't know where I'd be without this game. Everyone in the group helped me see a chance to live.

Saeyoung was one of the first, too. I love him like a brother because I saw my sacrifices in him. I'm like him in that sense. I would throw my life on the line to see someone else happy. That's not always a good trait because you need to protect yourself, too.

You can't always give to others. Sometimes, you need to be selfish. But, having him by your side to empathize with is cathartic, you're right. He gets it. He knows what you mean and he doesn't judge.

You love him because you see yourself in him. You know he's capable of love, just like you are, and you know that he's safe. He'd know that you're safe, too. He knows you better than you know yourself, and I'd dare say it's the same way the other way around. That's why it's easy to love him. You know he'll never let go of you. You know he'll always fight for you. You want to be fought for, you want to be loved, and you want a chance to be validated the way you validate Saeyoung.

I'd say there's nothing wrong with that.

I look to Saeran because he'd get me. He's been just as sick as I've been and I wouldn't have to tell him what's wrong in detail. I could just look at him with pain in my soul, and he'd know. He'd get it and I wouldn't have to explain it. He'd just hold me... like I'd just hold him at his lowest moment. I feel like loving him makes me a better person. It reminds me that I have to try to treat myself the way I'd treat him... and the way he'd treat me. He'd want me to see something good even at the worst, and that helps me more than a lot of things.

So, I'd say, if you feel low... think about how Saeyoung would fight for you and help that inspire you to fight for yourself. Because he loves you and he always will, even if the galaxy keeps the two of you apart from one another. If you feel a flutter in your chest, it's him, calling out to your heart with a prayer you'll smile again.

And just remember, talking about your grief helps. Don't ball it up. If you have to write something down to let it out, do it. Never hesitate.

[casspurrjoybell-20]

FOOLS - Chapter 37 - Part 1

BOOK ONE: The 'Fools Fall in Love' Trilogy

*Warning - Adult Content*

Noah Wright

"Okay, so there's four bedrooms. Emily's with me, Zach and Haven and you four figure it out," Jason gestured to me, Sam, Kaitlyn and Carter.

"I'll stay with Sam," Kaitlyn chimed before anyone could speak.

Fucking great.

"Looks like we're roomies," Carter said, wrapping his arm around my shoulders.

I looked back at Sam and gave him a pleading look 'help me'.

Sam shrugged 'sorry' was the look he gave me.

It will be okay, once I tell everyone that Sam and I are together, we'll rearrange the room situation... though I doubt Kaitlyn wants to bunk with Carter.

'Ugh.'

No, that was not my problem.

It wasn't like Carter was going to fuck her without her consent.

They're both mature enough to sleep in the same bed together.

Just sleep.

It would be fine.

Now, to clarify, I didn't care if they did fuck, only if they both wanted to but Carter's a bit of a sleazy guy, so I wouldn't put it past him to make a move on Kaitlyn and make her uncomfortable but I know Carter would take 'no' for an answer, so maybe I should relax.

They could handle themselves but that was only if I came out to everyone.

Carter and I walked into our room.

"Holy shit. This is a one bedroom? Cause it looks like they put three bedrooms together but forgot to put up the walls that divided them," I said in awe as I looked around the massive room.

"God damn. Like why though? Jason doesn't even have a big family," Carter said, setting his bags down.

"Are all the rooms like this? Or did we just happen to pick the biggest fucking one?" I laughed as I hopped on the bed.

Then I felt something, I looked down and picked it up.

"No fucking way," I laughed.

"It's chocolate. It's fucking chocolate."

Carter came by me and took the candy out of my hand.

"Well, Sweetie, it appears that we got the honeymoon suite."

I laughed.

"It appears so."

"Hey Jason," Carter shouted as Jason and Emily walked by.

"Yeah?" Jason questioned, walking into the room.

"Ha. You guys picked this room? I knew you two were gay for each other," he said.

"Oh, you wouldn't 'believe' who Noah was gay for," Carter spoke slyly and I almost had a heart attack but Jason laughed it off.

Carter threw the piece of chocolate at him.

"What the hell is all this shit?"

"My mom and dad come here for their anniversary, so this room usually has shit like candy and flowers in it."

Carter and I both got off the bed.

"Gross, I don't want to sleep on this bed, knowing that your parents just fucked on it," Carter said in disgust.

"Stop being a pussy. The maid comes here after every stay and washes everything."

"I hope your maid gets paid a shit load of money," I commented.

"She does. So do you guys want to switch rooms? Emily and I can take this room."

"Yes. I keep imagining your parents in this room and it really makes me want to throw up," I said and grabbed my stuff as did Carter.

"Yeah, your mom might be a milf but that doesn't mean I want to sleep in the same bed your dad did," Carter adds, cringing.

"Don't say shit like that. I don't need that picture in my mind," Jason said.

We switched rooms and the new room Carter and I got was roughly the same size as the first one, just slightly smaller.

I set my bag down and went to go find Sam.

Luckily, Sam and Kaitlyn chose the room across the hall from us, so I didn't have to search this huge ass house to find him.

"Hey," I entered the room.

Sam was putting his hygiene bag in the attached bathroom.

"Is Kait?"

"No, she went to go check out the hot tub."

"Hmm," is all I said, closing the bedroom door before pulling Sam into my arms.

"Sorry we got separated. I'll tell everyone soon."

"When soon?" he asked, sounding almost nervous.

Like he doubted I would do it.

I stepped back.

"I don't know. Tomorrow? I just need time to... ya' know..." but I didn't know what I was waiting for.

Sam sighed.

"It's okay," he spoke once he realized I wasn't going to continue my sentence.

He placed a hand on my cheek.

"Take your time," and he kissed me.

Sam was too good for me.

"I swear tomorrow."

I didn't know why I promised that but I didn't like the look of doubt on Sam's face.

Luckily, my promise granted me a smile and a peck on the nose.

"Okay. Let's go see what everyone else is up to," Sam suggested as he opened the bedroom door and I followed him out.

We walked past the rooms to an open space of the TV room.

Two large, brown couches facing a 60" flat screen tv that hung on the wall.

To the side was a bricked fireplace that Jason was already starting to light.

Everything was shades of brown, tan, green and red.

The typical interior to a woodsy vacation home.

Even a deer head hanging above the fire place.

Behind the couches, you stepped down from the carpeted floor onto a dark wooden floor that held the kitchen and a long, dining rectangular table.

Emily was in the kitchen putting the food we brought, into the fridge and pantry.

Most of it consisting of junk food and Alcohol that Zach's older brother bought for us.

I guess Zach being here had one perk.

Only one.

Sam went to the kitchen to help Emily with putting food away as I stepped outside.

Outside was lit up with Christmas lights and a few tikka torches.

The hot tub was big and off to the right of the back door, on a wooden platform, next to it was three wooden benches with cushions, surrounding a fire pit.

Off to the left was a hundred step staircase that led down to Lake Michigan.

For hypothermia reasons, we would not be going into the lake but down on the dock is usually where Jason, Carter and I go to smoke.

Kaitlyn was already in her bikini, stepping into the hot tub when I walked up to her.

She was alone.

Perfect timing to talk to her about Sam and I.

"Damn, you just go right in," I commented and walked up to the hot tub.

Kaitlyn smiled.

"Well, considering it's like ten degrees out and I'm wearing a bikini, it was either jump in or freeze."

Speaking of jumping in.

"Kaitlyn, I've been wanting to talk to you."

"Me too but you go first."

"Okay, um," I took a deep breath.

This was for Sam and I.

[eightiesfood-blog]

💏 :-)

kiss meme ! // @eightiesweights

           …as comfort.

        he can just FEEL the tension,it hangs HEAVY in the air around them.run ins with local bully kids leave hannahsteamed; he can see it in the crisp angerher stare holds whilst she watches larry &barry retreat, though not of her own fault.they were a little more intimidated by HIM sincethe incident at the mall. 

         mike can see how TIGHT her hands are balled into fists, while in onehand she white-knuckles her BACKPACK.she had been ready to swing, her facescrewed into one of rage. he understandsher easily lost temper. but, he puts anuncharacteristically gentle hand on hershoulder and squeezes her gently.

      ❝ they’re GONE. ❞

       great thinking, captain obvious. hesighs and leans down just a little, unsureof how this’ll play out. his doubts do notstop him as he presses a light kiss to thetop of her head, but he is quick to straightenup.

     ❝ c’mon. let’s go. ❞

[thebigoblin]

(because for some reason asks wasn’t on)

@fairytales-and-folklore asked:

Ohhh for the WIP ask game, I'd love to know more about:

5. Twisted Alphas - character study on Nemeton

6. You Haven’t Connected Shit - Sterek

10. Fallen - Sterek

and

@greyhavenisback asked:

I don't seem to be able to send you an ask! But I'd love to hear more about "you haven't connected shit"

Since this was asked twice, I’ll start with this one!

You Haven’t Connected Shit

I was talking with Kaite (on the very long reblog-chain-post 😂) and I wrote something like, Stiles and Derek communicating through Morse Code while Derek is perched on Stiles’ roof and poof! A new WIP was born. 

My opening scene idea (I haven’t written anything substantial down for this yet) is basically canon divergent from the pool episode, where Derek is checking in on Stiles later in the night and he is shivering, and he wants to be comfortable like Stiles is inside his blanket. He taps that wish out, and Stiles who is not asleep hears it clearly, and then after being surprised (because why is Derek here?) lets Derek come in to cuddle. Because Huddling for warmth lmao. And I want to continue this with them just talking to each other like this throughout the seasons, (in case I make this canon compliant) or through whatever ends up happening in this ‘verse. They may not use their words, but they do talk. 

Twisted Alphas

This was inspired by one of the prompts from @haleoweentw “twisted alphas” -- hence the current title (i need to come up with one). 

In this, I explore the reasons behind the Nemeton’s power. Was it just a normal tree that has since been endowed with power, or has it always been filled with power? 

I decided to explore a little bit of both! lol. Below is a small snippet:

*

They wondered, some days. Who were they? Why were they so different than the other trees? They could think, their friends could not. They had magic, their friends did not. The answers came slower than they'd like, but at least they did come.

They, too, had a Spark. Someday, somehow, they'd been given this gift, and they'd nurtured the Spark enough for it to be further gifted to others—like the Hales. The Gajos. And countless others. But oh, they loved none other as much as they loved the Hales.

They loved them all, every single one of them, until the day they pitied them instead.

*

The fic is a Nemeton POV, wherein its powers amplify when Cameron Hale -- an Omega and his wife -- leave when she is about to go into labor, and with no midwives available here, they leave to go to another town. The son, Theoderic Hale, is the first Hale Alpha.  I’ll add another snippet:

*

The power in them had hummed, a sugary sweet softness falling over the forest even as the silence had been pierced by a set of very powerful lungs. They'd reached out with their branches, slowly, and when neither Cameron nor Beatrice had stopped them, they'd curled themselves around the baby boy, reveled in the breath of fresh life. When they'd parted, a small piece had broken off of them—their power had divided itself, but as years would teach them, their power had actually multiplied themselves.

"Theoderic Hale," Beatrice announced, once Cameron had stopped sobbing tears of happiness, "Ruler of people. Our son," and she'd looked at them then, gratitude shining in her eyes.

Cameron's earth-colored beta eyes had never looked shinier than they did the moment the baby boy's blood-red alpha eyes demanded them forward. The first Hale Alpha.

And that was how the Hale Spark came to be, their most revered possession—at least until it was corrupted.

*

And so on and so forth. I play with the time-period, jumping from the beginning to going through the seasons in just as small snippets (The Fire, Void, The cutting down of the Nemeton, Peter, Laura’s death, Derek as the Alpha etc.). I’m not entirely sure where I’m going with this, but yeah, this is basically a Character Study on the Nemeton (and unintentionally on the other actual characters).

Fallen

This is a fall fic! (Ik the title is cliche. Shut up 😂) This is basically me writing an established Hale Pack + established Sterek fic with the extra, extra descriptions of Fall. Literally, that’s it. 

This is everything I have written:

*

The leaves turn red and orange and yellow, and they fall from their precarious perch, down and down and down, only to be crunched over by shoes and boots and heels. Old mixes with new, old becomes new; It’s a new beginning, but before that, it is an end.

There’s laughter in the air, a calmness in the sea of a thunderous realization that this is their last year together.  

Stiles Stilinski watches from his own perch on the bench, eyes following along as people move, to and fro, in an endless haze of motion and words and energy.  

Crunch.  

Another leaf, gone; Stiles thinks wryly. “It’s months away,” he complains, and just like he’d anticipated, another leaf meets their death under Derek Hale’s eternal black boots.  

“What is?”  

Stiles doesn’t turn, simply continues watching the other students. Lydia is talking to Gracie, both of their hair caught in the fiery gaze of the sun. Where Lydia’s hair looks like fire personified, Gracie’s blonde hair shines like a halo.  

“Winter Formal. You know, the one that Peter crashed two years back? Mauled Lydia to bind himself to her so that he could come back sane- well, saner,”

Derek hums in reply, and Stiles feels Derek’s hand slip around his waist. Stiles leans into it; the sun is out, but the chill is biting at his skin, the early October wind ruffling him into an ice-doll. Derek is warm, though; he’s like bread when recently pulled out of the oven, and Stiles will take any reason to cuddle with him anyway, so.  

“I mean, I get that it’s a big thing, but does the preparation really has to start this early? I haven’t seen Lydia all week because of it. I think she is trying to avoid me. Derek. Is she? Is she avoiding me?”

Derek’s voice is a soothing whisper against Stiles’ shoulders, “How am I supposed to know?”

“You’re the Alpha. You know everything,”  

“That’s because my Emissary tells me everything.”

Stiles looks up at that. Framed between the branches of the tree behind the bench, green and yellow and red and orange leaves all form a circle around Derek’s head, and the sunlight streams through between the gaps and makes his jet-black hair look like obsidian. Derek’s lips curl into a soft smile, and Stiles is helpless to the lure of them.  

Derek’s lips are soft and warm, and Stiles feels the difference of temperature between a human and a werewolf; Derek’s lips part as Stiles’ own transfer his coldness to them, and Stiles licks into him, takes in the warmth of Derek and gives back his own love in return.  

They don’t say anything; they never do, but it doesn’t matter, because the truth is written in each of their smiles as they part.  

“It sounds like your Emissary does all your work,” Stiles teases, and Derek laughs, short but beautiful. His gorgeous eyes find Stiles’, and even as he denies the claim, Stiles reads the trust written in them.

*

And yuuupppp, that’s it! (Ik these are not very informative, but tbh I have no idea where any of these are going, I just like pretty words, okay?) 

Thanks for asking! <3<3<3

[dingdongitsbees]

BLACK-EYED SUSAN | LEVI X READER HUNGER GAMES AU

Chapter 13: Rinse and Repeat

Previous - Next

Tw: PTSD, implied suicidal ideation, alcoholism

WC: 5.4k Ao3 link Ask to be added to the taglist! It will be updated weekly on Saturdays

First person version can be found here

Master List

“Nothing ever ends poetically. It ends and we turn it into poetry. All that blood was never once beautiful, it was always just red.” – Kait Rokowski

 .

 .

 .

It had been a few years since your world had gotten simultaneously a million times better and also gone to shit. It hadn’t really hit you two until you had spent a few days back in the homes that had been provided for you. You each had your own house as per usual for victors, but you didn’t need a second. You had spent your life together in a borderline shack, it would feel weird to have the other sleep across the street. But it had been in that gifted house that it finally came crashing down.

All you could see was their faces, all you could feel was that knife in your hand, all you could hear was that goddamn canon. You were sitting on a velvet couch paid for in blood. Now having more than enough food on the table was exchanged for lives. Being able to still exist in the world meant twenty-two people had been ripped from the world.

Levi had been next to you, so he just held you, his shoulders shuddering just as bad as yours, and you cried. You just cried. There’s nothing you can do or say or think to make anything like that better. Only time can help, and to be honest it isn’t very good at its job.

The trip to each district took what was left out of you two. Combined you had killed tributes of five districts out of the other eleven. Almost fucking half. Most of their families just glared at you on their platforms as their child’s face was displayed behind them as you recited propaganda scripts.

District Ten was hard for you. They had surprised you to be honest, neither of Sasha’s nor Connie’s family looked at you with any disdain. All you could feel was pity radiating off of them, especially from Sasha’s father. She told you how he had taught her how to shoot, you almost deviated off script to say how you learnt vicariously through his daughter, how kind she and funny she was.

Connie’s siblings hurt to look at. They looked at you with such big eyes. They should have hated you, they really fucking should have. Their brother died in one of the most horrific ways possible yet they stared at you as if you were one of their sisters. The normal people in front of the stage only copied their looks, none of them hated you for taking away two souls. It didn’t make any fucking sense. It would have been better if they had just heckled you. Just yelled at you and screamed at you, taking the brunt of their words was the least you could do for exchanging your life for one their own.

District Eleven wasn’t so kind to Levi. Kaya’s family looked like they were two seconds from breaking on to the main stage and choking him to death right there. He might have let them. Niccolo’s family was confusing. There was obviously no forgiveness for how Levi killed their son, a wild animal in a spree of rage, but they didn’t look angry. Levi had told you he had just said a few words over Niccolo before coming back, maybe those words were enough remorse for them to not want his head on a spike.

However, the civilians in the crowd didn’t agree. They had to be restrained from climbing up, yelling threats and taunts, about how he could kill a little girl without a second glance, how he took pleasure in killing Niccolo. Levi kept his head down, his undercut blinding his view, but his hand shook in yours. You did the speech on behalf of the both of you.

The districts from Nine to Five didn’t give two shits about you, maybe only some had mild curiosity. Their glazed-over eyes just stared, clearly bored as you were from the fuckery spilling from your lips. Some of the families glared only because their child wasn’t standing up there instead of you, but you couldn’t blame them for that.

One was…weird to say the least. Neither of you had many interactions with either Annie or Bertolt, but you two lead them to their deaths. Levi may have killed Annie directly but Bertolt’s murder was just cruel, you knew that, but you had thrown that rock anyway. Both of their families just looked devoid of any emotion, the crowd didn’t seem to care, that’s One for you, but their parents just looked empty. The speech went smoothly.

Three was strange as well, you never met nor saw their girl, but Falco you certainly had, but you also hadn’t killed him, in reality your relationship him was positive. They didn’t seem to hate you, quite the opposite really, they seemed to be happy you were there. Three was no stranger to careers betraying and killing their tributes so they were probably just happy Reiner didn’t win and it had been because of your own hands. Still, it was strange. Falco’s older brother, the one you had seen in the reaping recording, had looked on the brink of tears but he stayed strong, his back straight and head up high. They probably wouldn’t have looked at you the same if Falco had gone with you. Someone would have needed to kill him at some point anyway, it just so happened it wasn’t you.

Two was painful. Instead of two separate families standing on their respective platforms it was just one. There was confliction in their eyes for sure, you were surprised they could even stand to be around each other, their sister or bother’s son killing their child. But they stood together. Staring at you with a mix of hate and affection. Levi had to do the speech that time.

Four was hard once again, but only because of one person, specifically Marcel’s younger brother. He flew daggers from his eyes, pure fury ran through his veins. He probably would have killed you both if he had the chance, probably would have been good at it too. You could only begin to imagine the anger he had stored up since you had sliced his brother’s throat.

You recognised him in the reaping for the next game.

He used his anger well.

At the end of the trip you had to go to the Capitol once again for the Presidents party. You nearly preferred the arena.

Floch was sweating buckets under Zeke’s gaze the entire time and drank himself into a stupor, avoiding you both at every turn which you were glad for. People reached for you like you were statues, brushing your hair and clothes and bodies like you were pets. Nick was the only thing stopping you from cursing everyone in the vicinity, Levi came close. Zeke watched from his balcony, eyes narrowed and sipping on champagne waiting for one of you to misstep so he could order a bullet into your heads.

When you got home you two didn’t know what to do. You both fucked around for a year, bought anything that caught your eyes at the hub no matter if it was an ugly piece of pottery or a toy. You bought a lot of liquor too and drank most in one go. The burning in your throats let you forget the inferno in your brains. A small price to pay for some peace and quiet between neurons.

You two were rarely sober for the first few months. You’d wake up and have whiskey for breakfast, you’d walk around town, maybe sneak through the fence, and have some gin, and if it was a particularly bad day you’d opt for tequila as your bedtime stories.

People in the streets knew to leave you alone, just to let you wallow a bit, they hadn’t seen many victors, but they could guess that starting up conversations with people on the knife’s edge was a good way to get punched. Hannes talked to you two occasionally, usually at the hub, cheering your bottles with his flask. He didn’t ask about the game, he saw enough anyway, he just pretended you were those troublemaker kids you had been when you left.

It was Hanji of all people that got you out of it, though she wasn’t one to talk when it came to the number of empty bottles in your living room, but she at least cut the number down a bit or swapped out the drinks for something weaker much to your slurred complaints.

The months after that were hard, letting the built-up trauma hit you like a train. You both started getting nightmares.

One of you would wake up already screaming or crying or be entirely frozen still and unable to move as their body quaked. The other would hold on to them until their tremors ceased and their breath evened again. Then you’d just rinse and repeat the next night.

Rinse and repeat.

Flinch at a raised voice, go numb at the sight of blood, start hyperventilating when you were sure you had seen another tribute in the crowd.

Try not to let yourself die.

Rinse and repeat.

Then the next game came around. You both offered to go as mentors, to let Hanji take a backseat from the role after her isolating years, she came to make sure you didn’t say something stupid, but she just got to hang around without much of a care.

The two kids that you got weren’t good. You knew the second that their names were called that they were goners. Wouldn’t make it in the bloodbath, and even if they ran, they probably wouldn’t live past the first day. You learnt to push their names away. It didn’t help any to hang on to them.

The kids weren’t dumb, they knew that too.

There was a little bit of hope when they looked at you however, a hope that maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.

Porco had sliced both of their throats open within the first minute. Porco won the title of victor in only three days with a kill count of eight. They never had a chance.

You think that was the last time you cried.

When mentors go to the Capitol and watch the feed, they sit in a room together connected to an ongoing party that never stops until the games do, infested with sponsors and government officials. Only mentors are allowed in that room, not even titan servants. You just needed a room to be in to be able to grieve only with people that understood.

They always looked after the new mentors, it didn’t matter the districts or even if their tribute killed yours, they’d hold you, get you a glass of water or usually something stronger, just let you get everything out and topped up makeup on your red rimmed eyes before you got ambushed by press outside the door. Sometimes the career districts were prickly, but only the ones that truly cared about the kids became mentors anyway, so they weren’t ones to give you shit.

It just sort of numbed you after that. You’re not sure if you could even remember all the kids you sent to their deaths. No, you definitely couldn’t, and you didn’t plan to.

Without fail every year they always got killed in the bloodbath, and every year without fail you’d drill into them to just run away, but they just wouldn’t listen, or the careers just didn’t let them leave. You both spent most of your time in the Capitol just flicking off the tops of third bottles and taking quiet bets on who was going to win or who’d kill who. Levi was always right.

It was actually Erwin’s idea to do something back at Twelve, to find something to pour yourselves into. So, after the 70th Hunger Games you went back and pushed your ludicrous amount of money to builders to create an orphanage. The one on your side of Twelve was shit and didn’t have the funding nor space, it was the reason you two had never gone to it yourselves, so you gave them some of your load too so they could get food on the table for once.

Kids started trickling in, you didn’t run the place yourselves, you didn’t have the emotional range to do something like that anymore and you’d probably do more harm than good as their caretakers, they didn’t need a pair of fucked up twenty-year-olds to lead them through life. But you visited, making sure everything was up to scratch and there was no complaints or concerns from the kids about the people you had employed or the quality of their beds and food or if they needed some more toys to play with.

Levi always made sure the place was meticulous, and it was kinda funny how he used cleaning as his way to bond with the kids. They always complained but they never said no when he asked for their help. You helped kids with schoolwork and funded whatever type of skill they wanted to learn.

“You wanna paint? Here’s an easel and some paints from the Capitol that my designer friend sent over.”

It was hard to smile but at least you could help them to.

One day, when you two had dropped in to visit before you went to stock up on vodka, a boy came up to you with big emerald eyes, with a black-haired girl trailing after him. He asked a question that got everyone surrounding you looking up from their sandwiches.

“Can you teach us how to fight?”

And so you did. Twelve had always been at a disadvantage, nothing in your district aided you for the Games, the closet you’d had was learning about mines and explosions or having the physical strength to lift a pickaxe but that was only available when you worked in the mineshafts at eighteen, the last year qualifying for the reaping, and eighteen-years-olds were never picked.

So usually any kid that went in was utterly fucked.

Unless you tried changing that.

You started small. Learning how to throw a proper punch or kick, things you had learnt on the streets stirring up trouble. How to balance yourself in a proper stance so a gust of wind or a shove from a career wouldn’t send you stumbling.

You taught them the things you learnt in the Capitol and in the training room; what foods were safe, how to set a trap, how to treat a wound, how to conduct an interview, how to form an alliance, who to avoid.

It was a long time before you held a blade again.

They had begged you for months to just teach them how to knife fight, but the idea still shook you. You hadn’t held a throwing knife in your hand for years, but it still melded uncomfortably comfortable into your palm. You could still throw it and hit it dead on centre. You knew if the throw was hard enough to go through someone’s skull. You knew how long it would take for their body to hit the ground if it were a clean shot, and how long it would take if it wasn’t. You knew how many milliseconds it would take for the canon to fire.

Picking up a knife again, only if to teach, was a torturous process, but you didn’t let them know that. You would just drink a little more that night.

“Eren keep your arms up! Try and copy Mikasa’s form!” you barked.

They all stood in a line, throwing knives into hay bales, some making it, most missing. Mikasa was unsurprisingly the former, Eren was unsurprisingly the latter. The two were always the hardest at work though it seemed it was usually driven by Eren’s ambition. The kid wasn’t gifted with natural talent but he was stubborn enough to try and make up for it. They had come to the orphanage after Mikasa’s parents were murdered over some debt they couldn’t pay and Eren lost his mum to a mine explosion and then his father caught something bad from his own patient.

It was always them begging you (well Eren at least, Mikasa would just ask nicely) for more lessons and whatever advice they could squeeze out of you. It frightened you a little, Eren’s enthusiasm, you had seen that face before.

It was an unspoken truth that they were your favourites of the bunch, the others didn’t take offence to it, it was just those two were always coming up to you two whenever they got the chance, though you were scared it was because they reminded you of an overconfident kid and the one trying to take care of them. You tried to pretend you didn’t see Gabi and Falco when you looked at them.

“I’m trying but my arm’s starting to feel heavy!” Eren said, not even bothering to turn his head.

“You brats don’t have time to get tired when you’re in there so just get used to it,” Levi replied.

He walked behind them, arms crossed as he analysed each of them, you tried not to make a joke that Eren and Mikasa were taller than him now. He muttered out tips to those who needed it, and compliments to those who deserved it, you had tried to get him to coddle them just a little bit but then he said overestimating yourself just gets your killed and you couldn’t say anything to that. When he got to the end of the line of kids, he wandered back over to you and you gave a crooked smile.

He bumped his shoulder into yours before turning around and standing next to you, you both falling into your usual silence as you just watched.

“There’s more of them than usual,” Levi noted and you nodded absentmindedly.

“It’s today, it makes them nervous.”

“Zeke never picks them though.”

That was true, when you had first started up the orphanage, you had expected Zeke to jump at the opportunity, there was no way he wasn’t privy to your every movement let alone something that required legal documents to be signed, so how he hadn’t rigged the reaping to pull one of your kids was honestly getting a little unnerving.

But each year a pair of kids were picked that you didn’t recognise, and you’d breathe a sigh of relief; it’s much easier to forget strangers.

You realised that the games were rigged at the 71st games, you had noticed that all the slips of paper you could see, even though they were folded in half, would all start with the same letter, it peeking out, and then the name called out would match. You asked Hanji afterwards, cause there was no way she hadn’t noticed, and she just laughed in your face.

“It’s a show, of course they choose their cast.”

You leant your head on his shoulder as you watched, he leant his head too. His arms untangled themselves from each other and he let one fall, letting his pinkie interlock with your waiting one. You both still being there was a constant surprise and an unspoken threat, because someday, when Zeke got tired, or you did something to piss him off, that fact might not be so true anymore.

But Levi’s there now, maybe not tomorrow, but today at least, and you could only hope that the trend remained.

“Cut it out dude!”

You both whipped your heads around, finding two kids wrestling on the ground. They panted as they tried to get the advantage, dust billowing around them as the other kids stared. Neither of you could be bothered to move. Eventually one straddled the other, pinning him to the dirt.

Levi’s pinkie tightened.

The boy on the ground whined while the other grinned in victory before joining his empty hands together and sending them down onto the boy’s chest.

Levi stiffened beneath you and alarm bells blared in your head.

The boy started pretending to stab him.

“Die! Die! Die!”

The kids around them laughed.

The boy beneath told him to stop.

Levi’s breath shortened.

You were at the kids in a second, pulling them off one another.

“That’s enough.”

They went silent, the boys looking down to the ground in shame, though they didn’t know why you were trying so hard not to glare.

“Time to pack up anyway, you guys need to get ready for the reaping,” you said, you were just greeted with whinges, “Put the knives in the tub you lot. Now.”

They instantly shut up, knowing that tone of yours was not to be messed with under any circumstances. They all shuffled off, throwing the knives in, you always counted them all in case one of them took one, but they were good kids.

Levi nodded at them as they filed back inside the building, jaw still tight. As soon as they were all gone, Eren and Mikasa waving goodbye at the end of the line, you sprinted back over, running your hands through his hair as you brought his face to your shoulder.

“Shh it’s okay it’s okay.”

A shudder whipped through him.

You kissed his temple. “You’re not in the arena, you’re in Twelve. I’m not about to die and neither are you. No one is dying and no one is going to. Just breathe, just focus on my voice and breathe.”

Eventually he stilled again, air flowing through his lungs like normal. It didn’t happen as much anymore, but it still happened. It probably didn’t help that he was about to meet two dead kids.

“Let’s go home, yeah?”

He nodded into your shoulder before finally raising his head, sliding over his façade again. You two of all people had to be the strong ones today, you couldn’t show fear, you weren’t allowed to anymore.

The walk home was silent, most people were inside or rushing home to get ready. You dropped past the hub quickly and you bought some bottles from your usual, Levi didn’t say a word, just stared into space. You passed the town square, the camera crews were nearly all set up, the barriers were getting placed. Hannes was testing the mic on the stage, he sent you a nod that you sent back.

The Victor’s village was always weird to see, after passing smog polluted houses with windows that are barely transparent anymore with walls that are starting to tilt, you come to a pristine gate. The separation pissed you off like it was saying you were better than them, but Nick would have your head if you even suggested taking it down. The houses were beautiful too. Maybe it was just an average house for a Capitol citizen, maybe a little nicer, but it looked like a goddamn king’s estate compared to everywhere else in Twelve.

People would say you deserved it, to have a nice home. It made you want to puke.

You could see Hanji through her window, lounging on a couch, bottle of whiskey in hand. Seemed like a plan.

You squeezed Levi’s hand as you unlocked the door and led him inside. You shed your jackets and shoes and put away your bottles, leaving one out. You glanced to him, he was still sort of out of it, he needed quietness, maybe a bath. Yeah a bath would do, those always calmed him down.

You trekked up the stairs, on the landing you let yourself take a little run up and slide across the wooden floorboards on your socks towards the bathroom door. Silly shit helped sometimes.

You reached out and grabbed the handle and turned it, pushing forward on the door. It let out an ungodly and far too familiar screech.

You gasped and slammed your back into the wall.

Fuck.

Your breath was getting quicker, not letting your lungs get enough oxygen before taking another gulp.

Fuck fuck fuck.

You crouched down, elbows on your knees as you pressed your palms into your eyes at a sad attempt to get your brain to stop.

You could only see him, or in more exact terms, you could only see his melted remains.

Fuck.

Rapid thumps came from the stairwell, you didn’t look up as arms enveloped you.

You let out a shaky breath. “I’m fine.”

He didn’t say anything, just kissed your head before holding you tighter. Your need to talk to communicate was even less than it used to be ever since the Games. There were things you two didn’t need to speak about, you just acted on, knowing exactly what to do.

Though there were moments you didn’t want to talk about, and you didn’t plan to talk about them either. He didn’t mention finding you sobbing on the bathroom floor surrounded by spilled sleeping pills and you didn’t mention waking up alone in bed and finding him completely out of it on the roof of the orphanage. You didn’t talk about it, but you held each other a little tighter just as you did both of those nights.

“I’ll get some oil for it when we get back,” Levi whispered.

You nodded into his chest.

“Bath?” he asked.

You nodded again.

.

Warm water has magical powers you swore, it really shouldn’t be able to make someone feel so good, to be able to relax and almost drift away forgetting about the possibility of drowning. What a lame way to go out, though it was much nicer than the ways you’d seen.

You laid on Levi’s chest as the water rippled around your little movements. He played with your pruned fingers, touching the fingertips with his own like it was an interactive museum exhibit. You watched, fascinated by his fascination, blinking slowly as the bath bled out all of your stress.

Moments like that were nice, but it had to be broken today. You couldn’t stay in that warm heaven forever, though it was quite tempting, you wouldn’t exactly be missing out on the adventure of a lifetime.

.

You ruffled the towel through your hair as you sipped the vodka. The burn and taste were barely noticeable, even the effect had begun to wear off or maybe you had just gotten better at being under the influence.

“Catch.”

You threw the bottle to Levi on the couch who caught it without a second glance, immediately taking a few gulps of it himself.

“Hello you two.”

You both looked to the door, sending tight smiles to your usual guest, though to be honest your home was hers and hers was yours at that point.

She walked behind Levi’s couch and took the bottle that he already had extended to her, taking a gulp before placing it on a side table.

“Ready to send children to die?”

.

The reaping went as usual. Hanji welcomed everyone to the 74th Hunger Games, two kids got reaped, one fifteen-year-old and one thirteen-year-old, you couldn’t remember which was which. You waited in the train, neither of them came up to talk to you and just ate up all the food they could before passing out on the nicest bed they would ever sleep in. You didn’t bother them, one look and you knew they were a lost cause.

The process went on.

Neither were that charismatic, they were only memorable because they were last and that was pushing it as is. They both got low scores, a four and a six. The thirteen-year-old cried himself to sleep the night before, or he might have, you wouldn’t know, you slept through it.

That morning you went up to the roof with them, got in the mentor’s hovercraft and just twiddled your thumbs, wondering who was going to win that year or what the arena was going to look like. You went in, sitting in the back of a cart, going through the maze of corridors beneath the grand stage, not bothering to focus in your eyes to see your surroundings. It was just grey walls anyway.

You yawned when you got to the centre, scratching the back of your neck as you tried to find your tributes amongst all of the shaking teenagers.

A finger tapped you on the shoulder. You spun around to see the girl from…Seven? She grinned, her eyes crinkling.

“I just wanted to say I think you’re really cool, I really admire what you and Levi did in your games.”

You blinked.

“Oh, is that so? Good luck then I guess.”

She smiled even wider before running off with a wave. You dragged a hand over your face before heading over to your tribute waiting for you.

It was a forest arena, nothing too special.

The games had long since started when you got back to main city of the Capitol and went into the sponsor party, both of you immediately beelined for the mentor room. You watched as replays showed one getting killed in the bloodbath the other getting hunted down by none other than the careers. You just stared at their slow-mo screaming faces and sighed.

You didn’t cry, you didn’t even blink. You did the first time but after that it’s just been shut away. Thankfully there was no new mentors that year, you didn’t have to deal with sobbing messes. You were too exhausted to care for someone anymore. Compassion doesn’t come cheap.

The mentor room was filled with pain as always, most were just trying to unlearn two names as quickly as possible, drowning their neurons in liquor so they could pretend that two faces weren’t burnt into their brains. It won’t be enough, it never is. You knew that too now.

Some of the others in the room weren’t mentors but they were victors all the same, having just grabbed a free trip to the Capitol so they could bum off some high-class booze. Couldn’t blame them. They were lucky though, the other districts, having more than three victors meant they had the option of just staying home and just ignoring the screen. They didn’t have to know the kids.

You two spent the rest of your time in silence, going back up to the penthouse to sleep before coming back, hoping the whole ordeal would be over soon.

The girl that talked to you before it started, a girl from Eight you had learned, was still alive though, and you couldn’t help but cheer for her a little bit. She started an alliance with a girl from Six, both doing well against the attempted threats on their lives by the careers. Soon they had made it to the last few with only a few scratches to show the world, much better than your leg to say the least. It still ached every once in a while.

But you were still surprised when her little duo alliance were the last ones left. Their mentors were on the edges of their seats, hands covering their noses and mouths like a prayer, eyes glued to the screen.

Then the girl from Eight did something fucking stupid, something that made everyone’s breath hitch around the country.

She brought out some poisonous berries. They had killed a career with them, not needing to get into a fight, but then they held grenades in the form of blueberries in their blood-stained hands.

They brought it to their mouths as the room cursed in unison, people rose from their seats, you could hear people yelling outside the door. They both hesitated for a second as they counted down but plopped them in their mouths anyway.

Two canons fired in quick succession.

The transmission was as silent as the room. No one knew what to do. You stared at the screen with two dead kids. There wasn’t going to be a victor. There wasn’t going to be a victor because they copied you.

“I really admire what you and Levi did in your games.”

Fuck.

Fuck fuck fuck.

The room slowly turned to you two as your heart hammered in your chest, Levi’s hand fumbled for yours.

You were fucked. Completely and utterly fucked.

.

.

.

a/n: sorry this chapter was late! this was mainly just summary but we’ll really get into it next chapter

.

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[inherstars]

Gears of War | Rise and Fall (2 of 3)

Continued from here.

This was new, but he didn’t hate it.

He had no fucking idea what was happening, but he didn’t hate it.

The energy necessary for refrigeration being at a premium, the Outsiders still relied on smoking and salting as a method of preservation for much of the food they hunted and fished.  J.D. had seen the smoking tents plenty of times in the course of his chores and duties around camp, but never really had a reason to go inside one.  Smoked sausage was tasty, and that was the extent of how much he thought about it.

The tents were conical, wide at the bottom and narrow at the top, constructed from tentpole stays arranged in a circle and woven together overhead.  The outside was some kind of waxed canvas or tanned hide, he couldn’t quite tell, laced together in sections and pulled taught like the skin of an emaciated animal stretched against its ribs.  It was vented at the top, the blue of early twilight showing through the gaps whenever he looked up.

But he was being steamed tonight, not smoked.

The center of the floor was dug into a firepit, the outside ringed in black riverstone.  Kait’s face danced with red-gold firelight as she alternately stoked the fire and added handfuls of herbs to the water boiling in an iron pot.  A kettle hung on the fire as well, but for now she concentrated on the pot, stripping leaves and needles into the water as the surface roiled.

Every now and then she dipped a spoon inside, stirring it, worrying him that he was going to be forced to drink… whatever that was.  Literal seeds and sticks.

How do I decline that without offending her, he thought.

Then she removed a ladleful, one after another, and drenched the scorching riverstone.  They hissed and spit more steam into the air, all but veiling them both in white.

J.D. inhaled and felt the stuffed cotton thickness in his sinuses open up like magic.  He breathed deeper, drawing it into his lungs, like a man drunk on relief.

“Holy shit.”

“I’m guessing it’s working,” Kait laughed, stirring the pot.

“What is that?”

“In the pot?  It’s called kotai’machi.  It’s a mix of mint, rosemary… a few other things. I’m spitballing a little.  But boiling everything releases menthol and camphor into the water.  The steam from it helps open everything up.”

He uttered a single, crackling cough and reached for the handkerchief, blowing his nose as politely as he could.  Breathing again was wonderful. He was a huge fan.

“I might have noticed.”

Kait smirked, ladling out more of the infusion, deeply steaming the air.

“Oh no,” she mocked.  “Kait was right.”

“Didn’t say that yet."

"You will."  She let the mixture continue to boil, setting the spoon aside, then turned her attention back to the picnic scarf of dried herbs before her.  She was more particular with what she did with these: gently massaging small, dried leaves from their stems and into a glazed clay mug.  She added a few dried berries, a generous drizzle of honey that caught the firelight like spun gold.  

J.D. followed her hands as she poured off water from the kettle, letting the contents steep and settle before passing it across to him.  He took it hesitantly.

"What's this?"

"A tisane.  Mostly willow bark, lemon balm... a few other things.  The willow can be a little bitter, but the honey should help it go down more easily.  It will help with your throat, but it’s mostly for fever."

“Fever?”  He brought the mug to his mouth in both hands, smelling it -- did he mention how nice it was to be able to smell things? -- then lipping it carefully.  Still hot.  He proceeded carefully, with small sips.  “I don't remember you taking my temperature."

"I took a guess.  Your eyes were extra blue."

He stopped between sips, shell-shocked. “...they were what now?"

“Drink it, would you?”

Kait finally sat back, legs crossed at the ankles, but knees angled up so she could circle them with her arms.  She watched him to make sure he drank, satisfied when he hummed, and relaxed, and eased more comfortably down into place.

When it seemed safe to do so, she asked, “...seriously, J.D., why are you so resistant to accepting help?”

"I'm not resistant,” he objected.  “I just... like being self-sufficient."

She rolled her eyes. "Okay.  Pretend that's what I asked."

He sniffled, taking a discreet pass at his nose, willfully wasting time.

"Uh.  Serious answer, or patented J.D.-Fenix-avoiding-an-uncomfortable-discussion answer?"

"The first one."

"Are you sure? Because I have so many snappy comebacks--"

"J.D."

"I’m just saying, it’s almost criminal to waste them."

Her head hung back.  "Goddddd.”

"Jeez, okay, okay.  Uh.  Look.”  He drank again, concentrating on the sweetness of the honey as it bathed his tongue with every swallow.  The taste of mint cooled the back of his throat.  “I don't know what to tell you.  I go out of my way not to be too self-aware." He freed a hand to circle indicatively at his head. "It's kind of a mess in here."  Another circle at his chest. "...in here."

Kait blinked, placid.  "Close your eyes and breathe in deeply. Let it out."

"Sorry, I didn't mean the chest congestion."

"Neither did I.”  She nodded at him.  “Do it."

He eyed her unhappily, but lowered the tisane in both hands.  Closed his eyes, did as she said.

He was quiet for a long moment before he started talking.

"My Mom died when I was really young.  I tell myself I remember her a lot more than I do but, to be honest...  I don't.  And you know how when you make a copy of a copy, each iteration just deteriorates more and more, until it... doesn't look anything like what it started with?  Sometimes…”

His eyes opened to tired slivers, the blue of them transformed to soft, molten gold.  Fenix eyes, his mother called them.

“...I feel like that's how memories work, too.  When I think about my Mom, I'm never remembering her as she actually was, I'm... remembering her as I last remembered her. And that memory is just a copy of the one before it.  Over and over.  Deteriorating.  Until every time I think about her, and how... kind, and gentle she was to me... I'm remembering the real her less and less.  It's hard to trust that what I remember was real.  So... I try not to remember her.  Like I might immortalize her that way.  Keep her safe from dissolving and disappearing altogether."

Kait let his words linger over the crackle of the fire and the soft shift of logs.  When nothing further seemed forthcoming, she said softly, “J.D., you can't remember someone by refusing to remember them."

"Maybe,” he agreed, not looking at her.  “But... what if I lose what little I still have of her?"

His eyes upturned eventually, and with a slow blink he shrugged his shoulders.  He finished off the tea in a final swallow and Kait took back the cup.

"After she died,” he said.  “I was sent off to the academy and... you know the rest.  I only saw my Dad on holidays.  Sometimes for a few weeks or months at a time, during the summer.  It was fine when I was younger, but... as I got older, we just butted heads more and more often. Then I stopped wanting to come home.”

Another shrug.  "But to answer your question, my Dad is this, like... mythic figure.  Embry star, hero of the Pendulum Wars... then hero of the Locust Wars. How do I even begin to... to live up to that?"  He sighed.  "I'm already a disappointment to him--"

"J.D., that can't be true--"

"No, it is,” he exhaled a single, dry, humorless laugh.  “Trust me, my father is a man of few words.  He's got 'I'm not mad, I'm disappointed' down to a very specific grunt, there's no mistaking it."

He thought on that a second, then smiled.  Weary.  His heart wasn’t in it.

"I love him,” he said.  “And I know he loves me. But love isn't... tenderness."

Kait reached for his hand, catching it where it rested on his knee.  J.D. stared at it, then met her eyes.

“But it can be, if you let it,” she urged.  J.D. just looked at her, broken as a little boy.  She squeezed his hand.  “Close your eyes and breathe in deeply.  Let it out.”

He did.  She tried again.

"Why do you have to be so self-sufficient?"

J.D. grunted quietly.  "Um.  Because I'm a stubborn dumbass?"

With a smile she leaned forward to cup his cheek, and his eyes reopened to find her smiling tenderly.  God, he wanted to kiss her.

"Look at that,” Kait marveled.  “You were finally right about something."

Okay, never mind, the moment was gone.

Kait unfolded her legs beneath her, standing, and reached for both his hands.  "Alright. Come on."

J.D. groaned in complaint, but up he went, following her out into the cool blue twilight as she held open the tent flap.

"Where are we going now?  To consult your ancestral elders and make a sacrifice to appeal for healing vibes?”

She rolled her eyes, following him out.

"Wow, you were really spot on about the dumbass thing."

"It's uncanny, right?"  He promptly shivered in the cool air -- okay, he felt the fever now -- and tightened his arms into a fold against his chest.  'But, uh... seriously, where are we going?"

"To bed."  When he groaned -- even more dramatically, this time -- she amended, "Not to the dormitory. I'm taking you home, you can crash with me until you're feeling better.  No sense in you getting everybody else sick."

J.D. didn’t even know how to begin processing that, and so he didn’t.  He fell a couple steps behind her, mouthing the air like a fish, then hurried to catch up.

"Uh--hey, speaking of?  How come you're not worried about getting sick?"

"Oh, yeah,” she looked at him. “I don't get sick."

"Okay," he laughed.

“No, I'm serious.”

“That's... Kait, that's not possible, everybody--”

“Not me.”

“Like ever?”

“Ever.  Don't get me wrong, I've broken bones, been concussed, stung by wasps, bitten by a couple snakes, had a piece of glass go right through my foot, and needed stitches so many times.  As a little girl playing in these mountains, I fucked myself up pretty much every way a person could.  But.. never been sick.  My Mom's the same way... says she always has been.”

J.D. considered himself of fairly hale stock overall, but he couldn’t even fathom what she was saying.

“You realize that's super weird, right?  Like... we-ought-to-tell-somebody-about-that level of weird.”

Now she looked incredulous.

“Oh yeah?  Who am I going to tell?  The COG?  How has full disclosure with them been working out for you?”

Oh. Huh.  Okay, she had a point.

He sniffled, tightening his arms as they walked.

“You are just on a roll of being right today, aren't you…”

Continued here.

[ozzdog12]

2020 Top 7 (and 1)

2020 am I right? We saw an insane amount of games come out and 2 brand new consoles. What a wild and weird year for gaming, and life in general. In case you are relatively new here, and to be honest that would be completely fair considering I don't post very often on Tumblr anymore, every year going on the last 4 years (on here) I have done a Top 7 (& 1) for my favorite videogames of the year. Check out 2019, 2018, & 2017. What’s wild, as I look back on my list of games that I’ve completed and played, only maybe 10 came out this year. 2020 was a huge backlog year. 

Lets get on with the ‘And 1!”

Favorite Game that Didn’t Come out in 2020: Control (PS4)

Control may very well have been my 2019 Game of the Year, had I played it in 2019. I LOVED Control. I wanted to play it in 2019, but initial reports that it was a little rough on base consoles put me off until it was fixed. And Holy smokes what an insanely fun and trippy game once I finally started it. I knew within the first 20 minutes this was going to be the shit when I went down a hall, walked into a room and talked to the “janitor” left out a door behind him and the entire building had shifted. I’ve always liked Remedy games, but from a distance. Max Payne 1&2 and Alan Wake all oozed with weirdness and intrigue, but never enough for me to finish them. I missed out on Quantum Break. The story is Control is just the right amount of mind f*!$ for me and builds a universe I didn’t know I needed. It take some time to piece everything together, then everything just clicks. The game does have a weird difficulty spike when fighting bosses and the checkpoints were too far apart at times, but those were later patched. I spent an insane amount of time within the Federal Bureau of Control building and even more time after that with the Foundation and AWE DLC and it STILL wasn’t enough. I wanted more. Outside of Prey, I can’t think of another game that stuck in my brain more after I’d finished it. Control is absolutely a MUST PLAY title. In a world where everything sort’ve feels similar, Control stands out of the crowd.

Number 7: Astro’s Playroom (PS5)

I never thought in my wildest dreams that a game I had almost zero interest in playing would end up on my list of favorite games this year. Astro’s Playroom is being labeled as a ‘Tech demo’ but that feels like an insult to what it is. It’s a full fledged game and its free! I’ve paid more for less. A charming little platformer that lives and breathes the history of the Playstation. So many cool Easter eggs and references. It certainly centers its gameplay around the DualSense controller and everything it can do, but at its core, its a completely approachable and forgiving 3D platformer. I played it just to see what it was about, next thing i knew I had completed all the levels and wanted to further explore all the nooks and crannies within the game. I wanted to see everything the game had to offer and I had an absolute blast doing so. Makes me kinda wish I’d played the previous game on PSVR (I’d have to have a PSVR too)

Number 6: Spider-Man: Miles Morales (PS5)

Another quality title, albeit a spin-off, from Insomniac to add to their Spider Man universe. Gameplay felt obviously like Spider-Man, but Miles has unique abilities that made the game feel different enough, especially the cloak and stealth. I enjoyed the fact that it was short and concise. The issue with most ‘open-world’ games is that they are entirely too bloated with unnecessary filler content (I’ll get to that in a later game), something I felt the first game suffered from, but I also understand why they are there. However I could’ve use one or two more story missions to help flesh out some characters, but it wasn’t required and didn’t change my opinion one way or the other. My one BIG gripe was with Miles himself. He is an extremely smart young kid, but so incredibly naïve. Peter Parker tells him the one thing he SHOULD NOT do is tell people he is Spider-Man. I get it, that’s part of his growth, but Miles thinks he can just solve his problems by revealing his identity and it almost certainly never works out. 

Number 5: The Last of Us: Part 2 (PS4)

The Last of Us Part 2 may be the most polarizing game in the history of the medium, but for the absolute wrong reasons. I’m in the minority that I very much enjoyed my experience with TLOU2, quite a bit actually. Its better in every single way over its predecessor, except the overall story. There are plenty of fair criticisms to be had about the story and various things within the game itself, but I thought the gameplay was so tight and crunchy. There were genuine moments of suspense and terror that I felt that no other game has ever given me. The entire hospital section (2nd time) was so susensful, I had to put my controller down to gther myself. Some of my favorite moments in the series I experienced with a character I wasn’t overly fond of. How many games can do that? The Last of Us Part 2 was meant to invoke emotion, not necessarily joy. I think that's what people lost along the way. Say what you will about the direction Naughty Dog has taken over the years, but you would be hard pressed to find a studio that makes games graphically better than they do. Yes, I know about their crunch culture, but this is not a place for that. I will say, the game was a tad bit too long, which is not something it typically say for a single player, narrative driven game. The pacing and the way the story was told wasn’t my favorite, but I respect what it was trying to do, even if it failed in some aspect of that, I finished the game within the week it was released. Something I RARELY ever do. I’m a father and I related with Joel a lot in TLOU, but I also recognized how wrong he was. There is a lesson to be learned. Your actions always have consequences and while he was doing what he thought was the right thing, it wasn’t his choice to make, and in doing so set up a series of events that were entirely avoidable, but again, that’s the point isn’t it?

Number 4: Grindstone (Switch)

I’m counting this as a 2020 game since it just came to the Switch this year ( less than a month ago) but its not the first time I’ve played it. Grindstone was the only reason I kept my Apple Arcade subscription and when I let it lapse, there was a void I just couldn’t fill. I bought Puzzle Quest on Switch but it just wasn't the same. Its THE perfect game for bite sized play, even though in its addictive nature, you’ll clear a few levels and an hour has passed before you know it. It has the perfect amount of depth that most ‘match’ games don't. You have different weapons, items, and outfits w/perks to use and experiment with to keep it fresh. I went months without playing my Switch and when this was announced in August, I couldn’t wait! Sadly, I had to wait 3 months, but since then I have spent so much time on the Switch. It gave me a reason to play it again. The art style and humour is great. The variety of enemies and challenge is just right. I can’t recommend it enough. Seriously, check this game out!

Number 3: Doom Eternal (Xbox One)

I will be the first to tell you, I did not like Doom (2016). I found it extremely boring and trite. I understood what Doom(2016) was doing and it succeeded, maybe too much. Nostalgia is a helluva thing. So in saying that, I was mildly interested in Doom Eternal. Doom Eternal is nothing like 2016 outside of it being a Doom game that connects to the rest of them (& also being a sequel to 2016). The mechanics are drastically different with more platforming (for better or worse). Eternal is challenging, at times very hard, especially early on. Eternal has no respect for its players, in a weirdly good way. It laughs at how you’ve played FPS before this one and WILL MAKE you play it its way, not your way. Yes, you point and shoot, but ammo is scare and you MUST use everything in your arsenal. No more using just 2 guns for the whole game. The enemies are relentless. Sometimes you have to pause and take a breath after a battle because you go a 100 mph for the whole fight. You have to continuously move or you die. There is an enticing rhythm to it. I categorize Eternal as ‘Blood Ballet’. Its a game where when your feeling it, much like a rhythm game, you get in the zone and there is no stopping demons from getting slayed. Surprisingly, unlike most games in the genre, it seemed to get easier (sans one extremely frustrating platforming section late in the game) the longer you played it. Was that a testament that I ‘learned’ the Eternal way or it truly did get easier? I don’t know, but the final Boss(es) were....easy.. I had more problems and deaths within the first 4 hours than I did the final 8-9 hours. The multiplayer was also surprisingly fun. The older I get, the less interested I am in multiplayer, but I found myself coming back for more for a good month or so. 

Number 2: Gears Tactics (Xbox One)

As 2020 comes to a close, I came to a stunning realization. I might be a bigger Gears of War fan than I had previously thought. Don’t get me wrong. I love Gears, but I seem to love Gears more than I thought. I'm way more invested into the lore than I recall. Anyways, Gears Tactics is everything XCOM 2 SHOULD’VE been. Not only does Gears Tactics utilize the Overwatch action, its makes it EXTREMELY important. The story revolves around the father of Kait Diaz, Gabe and a ragtag group of mostly random soldiers to take down Ukkon. Anyone who is remotely interested in the Gears universe will love the story and references. The gameplay is just so damn satisfying. The bosses are very challenging and different. I actually had to change my strategy to finish the final boss. I experimented with a totally different style of class and was rewarded for it. The post game stuff is also aplenty. This game scratched a VERY specific itch for me and I’m itchy to jump back in. I’m glad this came to Xbox One because I’m current computer could not run it.

Number 1: Ghost of Tsushima (PS4)

I have a very odd relationship with massive open world games. I love them, but I get very burnt out on them. They all have a relatively same-y formula and are often populated with bloat. GoT does have some of that but to its advantage, its not very populated, in a good way. One of the things that I really appreciated about GoT and its side quest is most of them felt meaningful. The thing that really stood out to me about GoT is the absolutely satisfying combat. It just feels SO GOOD. It requires timing and patience. There are different fighting styles for different enemies and even the armor you wear is more than just cosmetic. The combat is so fun and satisfying that I was immediately excited when they announced Legends, a multiplayer add on, for free. Its so much fun and is a blast to play with a group of friends. I’m sporadically still playing the Legends mode. I initially wanted to play the game in ‘Kurosawa’ mode but I am glad I didn’t because the game, even on the PS4 is stunning, and on the upgrade on PS5 is jaw-droppingly smooth. I did play the entire game in Japanese with English subtitles. I still don't know what Jin’s English voice sounds like. GoT does a good job a drip feeding you new abilities and things to keep things fresh. I love stealth and once I unlocked it, I spent the majority of every battle taking out as many enemies as I could while in stealth mode. Ghost of Tsushima does a lot of things very well, that the few things it doesn’t can be easily overlooked.

[glitchh3d]

||Helping To Forget|| ~ Terushima Yuuji x Reader

I HIT 100 FOLLOWERS 

Dude thats wack.

I can’t believe I started this for my own happiness and now 100 people follow me and I- 

God you guys are amazing and I can’t thank you enough for keeping me inspired <3 I love you guys so much 

That almost makes me feel bad for what I’m going to do to you guys

Warnings: Um, boobs? And Mario Kart. Swearing and stuff. Also Waluigi (he’s too sexy) 

ALSO don’t peep on people when their changing cause that’s rude. This was inspired by a uh-  An experience I had with some guys at my apartment building. 

Masterlist

(Y/n) woke up the morning after her ruined girls trip with Kait excited. 

She’d picked up a pale blue t-shirt dress and a thick black corset belt and she was eager to put them on and see how her costume so far was coming along. She had also ordered a super blonde wig to wear for the night that hadn’t come in yet but the tracking site said it’d be there later that day so she wasn’t worried. 

She was also excited because both Matsukawa and Hanamaki committed to their roles and had both gotten their respective colors for their Blossom and Buttercup outfits. She’d been sent pictures in a group chat and had nearly died of laughter at how ridiculous they looked. 

(Y/n) stripped from her shirt, excited to put her dress on when she realized that her bedroom window curtains weren’t shut and she didn’t have a bra on, so she was completely exposed. She blushed, hoping no one was outside and continued to pull her shirt off. 

She rushed over to the window and froze in horror as Futakuchi, Atsumu, Terushima, and Taichi stood outside staring up at her. She screamed at them not to look as she reached for the curtains. She yanked too hard on one of them and a second later, she was laying on her floor with a dull throbbing on the top of her head. 

“Ow, what the fuck!” She groaned as she rubbed it. She looked up and noticed her curtain rod gone and could only assume what happened. Moments later, Terushima burst into her bedroom with rosy cheeks and wide eyes. 

As soon as he saw her, still topless, he clenched his eyes closed and maneuvered towards her, reaching his hands out for her to help her stand. 

“Baby are you okay? Is your head alright?” He asked as she grasped his hand. He pulled her up and she covered her chest with her arms. 

“I’m fine, dummy.” She said, pulling her bed t-shirt back on. She was so embarrassed. 

“Are you sure? I can take you to the doctor if you want? Just to make sure your brain doesn't look like- mush or something! Or to make sure you're not concussed!” (Y/n) pried his hands from his face and shook her head at him before exiting her room, him trailing behind her like a puppy. 

“Good morning. Nice boobs.” Atsumu said as she entered the living room. Taichi smacked him. 

“I told you fucking not too!”

“OW! And I didn’t listen!” 

“Clearly.” 

“Thank you, Atsumu. Can we forget that happened? Please?” She asked, her face burning in embarrassment. 

Sure, it’s happened before when she’s accidentally exposed herself to a group of guys. But it was her boys back at Seijoh that she’d known for years and these boys have only been in her life for around 6 months. She loved them to death, but still. 

“Sure, we’ll forget. As long as you play a few rounds of Mario Kart with us.” Futakuchi said, not glancing up from his phone. She shrugged. 

“Why not.” 

(Y/n) and Terushima sat down on the floor next to each other as Atsumu excitedly passed out controllers. 

Taichi was sitting out, opting to work on an assignment he needed to get done before noon. So Atsumu, (Y/n), Teru, and Futakuchi played. 

Terushima chose to play as Princess Peach. 

Atsumu chose Bowser. 

Futakuchi chose Waluigi. 

And (Y/n) chose Diddy Kong. 

Terushima scoffed as he noticed what character (Y/n) chose. She looked at him, a smirk on her face cause she already knew why he was mad. 

“Got something to say, pretty boy?” She asked. He rolled his eyes but smiled at her. 

“Just- fucking Diddy Kong? Really?” 

“You’re just mad because I kick your ass with a shit character. Get over it, baby boy.” She teased and Futakuchi gagged. 

“Can you keep the sexual tension between you two to a minimum, please?” The couple looked at each other, then at Futakuchi, then to Atsumu who was watching with wide eyes, and then back at each other. 

“Oh Princess Peach, I’d love to fuck you right now,” She said, deadpanned in a deeper voice. 

“Oh Diddy Kong! What would Mario think?” Terushima replied in a high pitch, girly voice. 

“Mario doesn’t need to know. He’s off fucking-” She glanced at Futakuchi. “He’s off fucking Waluigi anyways.” Futakuchi groaned. 

“Oh my god stop it, you two are so annoying.” He groaned as the first race loaded on the screen. They were in  Moo Moo meadows. 

(Y/n) was in the lead at first, followed closely by Atsumu who was third, then by Futakuchi at fourth and Terushima at tenth. He kept whining as she hit cows on the track but no one pitied him, he just really sucked at the game. 

“God I can’t wait to get to Rainbow Road. Terushima won’t even make it past the first lap,” Atsumu said as Terushima fell into last place and was lapped by both (Y/n) and Atsumu who were now in first and second. 

They played the game in serious concentration for about an hour or so before the first fight over a blue shell broke out. 

It was a tight race and (Y/n) was in first, followed by Taichi who had swapped with Terushima who gave up with a pout and suddenly she was in last place because a blue shell absolutely obliterated her. Taichi laughed as he took first and everyone gasped at the suddenly new development. 

“Holy shit, Tai. You’re a damn savage.” 

“She’s gotten first all but twice this entire time you’ve been playing. Things needed to change,” He shrugged and (Y/n) glared at the screen. 

“Holy shit princess, he- WOW! Teach me your ways, Taichi!” 

“I hate this game. I quit.” (Y/n) lost the race and shoved her controller into Terushima’s hands before pouting as she walked towards her bathroom to get ready for the day. 

She could hear the boys laughing behind her and she smiled. 

She really did love them.

Thanks again for 100 followers guys... I really love and appreciate you all. 

Idk how to express my love and appreciation and I just- 

♥️🥺

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